Watchful Eye (poor) Designs

[joseph daluz]

Has anybody else failed to see that the emperor was naked, in fact. I’m of course talking about the ALOSAK/OP SAKs sold on this sight $6+ cost for three plastic bags. Mine have all aquired holes with about one week on the trail. Has anyone else had a similar experience, or what?

[Dondo .]

The OP Saks aren’t very durable. A partial solution is to keep the OP Saks inside silnylon stuff sacks inside your pack. The regular (non-OP) Alosaks are much more durable.

[Brett .]

Joseph, I agree, and would even expand on your point. I bought many aloksaks due to marketing buzz, but after three critical failures of properly sealed sacks (video camera, wallet, etc..), I don’t use them for water resistant storage. The dual-zipper freezer style ziplocks are much better (and cheap). The Watchfulleye designs have been stagnant, ziplock is always improving their product to stay competitive and keep those housewives happy. If you want proof, compare the size, diameter, and tactile feedback of the ziplock slide-lock side by side with a Watchfuleye bag. Water-resistant storage is one thing, but I dont know if ziplocs will take boiling water; maybe the W.E. is the only choice there..

[Joshua Mitchell]

Joseph,

What are you using the OP Saks for? As Dondo mentioned, the OP saks are not meant for waterproof gear storage, they’re meant for odor-proof food storage.

[Aaron Sorensen]

I keep my gossamer thinlite pad wrapped around the OP sak.

Another big problem with the OP sack is that they are designed to carry food, but if you get the smallest amount of food or whatever in the seal, your out of luck unless you give up your toothbrush to clean it.

I have resort to keeping my food in small zipplock bags inside the OP bags. That way I don’t need to take the sak out of my backpack, (no punctures).

[joseph daluz]

The ziplocks most certainly do take boiling water without failure, at least one time. I will pack a meal, pour boiling water into the bag and then roll it up when I’m finished, no dishes to clean.

[Dondo .]

The Target brand quart size freezer bags also work well for boil-in-bag meals and are very inexpensive.

[David Bonn]

I’ve used two of these for food bags all last season. No failures in 100+ days of hiking.

They are well-protected in the pack (surrounded by a sleeping pad, tarp, and sleepingbag above). I keep my lunch for the day in a separate ziplock so I don’t need to go fishing in them until I get to camp in the evening.

I think it is also much, much better to underfill them.

[Rick Dreher]

I find the OP sacks tend to get small punctures easily, and need to be taped to stay OP (to their credit, they really are, unlike any other bag I’ve used). The regular bags are certainly tougher, but I still have had some zip locks delaminate on them.

All in all, a mixed bag (sorry).

[Author]

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