Alpacka Cargo Fly?

[Dean F.]

So I might actually be getting a packraft this year. Here is my sole conundrum: what's up with the Alpacka cargo fly? Is it durable, or is it going to fail on be in some godforsaken place? Is it truly airtight or does it leak slowly requiring topping up through the day? It certainly seems like a very handy capability- keeping the weight low in the tubes.

Note: I'm never doing *serious* whitewater. I do plan to do some multi-day floats and necessarily that might involve PR3 at some point. But I'm not looking for gnarly kewl excitement- I just need the packraft to facilitate expeditions.

[Chris Bailey]

I have a cargo fly and haven't noticed much difference in the amount of times I need to top up my boat during the day through the mouth piece. I don't think the fly makes much difference. The boat paddles a lot nicer with gear stored inside rather than outside (say 1/2 a grade better). And of course you are guaranteed it will stay dry, excepting a calamitous failure.

[Luke Schmidt]

My raft has no fly, mostly because I bought it used and was cheap in any case. I didn't hear any complaints or mention of such failure at the packraft roundup.

I'm happy with my current set up because its lighter and simpler. BUT I'm sure a raft handles better with the fly. My experience so far is that you need to be willing to do at least some Class III water really take advantage of a packraft in the rockies. So if the cargo fly gets you there I'd go for it. Maybe I'll see you on a river this summer.

[Dean F.]

Thanks guys. Another annoyance I thought of is having to deflate/reinflate to camp every night. But I'm going to be relatively new to the packraft thing, so I'm interested in any reasonable advantage I can get. I've done a fair amount of kayaking, but almost all sea kayaking.

It seems very unlikely that I'd really need the cargo fly for what I plan this summer, though, so I may forgo it and have it added later if I'm interested in it, since Alpacka offers that.

[Luke Schmidt]

Inflating the boat takes maybe 5-10 minutes. Not a huge deal imho. But if I recall you're mostly looking at the Flathead in which case you should be fine without it.
Have you considered going to the Packraft roundup?

[Manfred]

Dean,

May be you don't need to make the decision right away. I got my packraft retrofitted with the cargo fly, when I decided to take it across the Brooks Range.
For that trip I also bought an additional packraft for my son with the cargo fly pre-installed. I can't find any differences between the two packrafts. So may be – if you are in doubt – you first go without the cargo fly and add it later when you see a need.

We had so far no problems with the zippers (leaking or otherwise) during our month-long trip in Alaska or short weekend trips here at home. Nowadays, I purposefully put my gear as ballast into the cargo fly when I go on whitewater (only up to class III). The packraft handles so much better with the ballast. On one day trip it came in extremely handy when a "swim" turned into a situation that didn't allow us to continue. With all my standard gear in the cargo fly I was able to make camp, get out the quilt and tent, cook a hot drink and make some warm food. After a good night's rest – despite temperatures dropping to 26 F – we could continue the next morning and were fine.

Manfred

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

The cargo fly is awesome, but just so darn expensive. It's tempting just to go buy one of the same Tizip Superseal zippers for ~$70 and toss it in myself. How hard can it be? :)

Having to deflate to access stuff can be a hassle, but it seems pretty easy to plan sufficiently ahead 90% of the time so that access is never needing during the day. Also, once you've done a lot of inflating you can definitely get it quicker than 5-10 minutes. I pretty routinely blow up the boat in 1 minute and then spend another minute topping it up by mouth and blowing up the seat.

[Dean F.]

Dammit. Now I'm conflicted, again…

Ok, more thinking to do.

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

Kokopelli offers what appears to be the same Tizip on their boats for $100 – $125 rather than $275. That doesn't include the dry bags, but it's still way cheaper than Alpacka.

It might be worth shooting them an email to ask if they'd retrofit one on your Alpacka.

[Manfred]

The cargo fly is really a three piece system.
1) The zipper in the packraft
2&3) The two inflatable drybags that hold the gear and slide perfectly into the tubes where they are held in position by a clip that is added inside each tube. The inflated drybags are giving you two additional air chambers.

Personally I like the setup. I would not just have a zipper added to my boat and then throw stuff in there that can slide around. Having the drybags secured in place and inflating them are two important features in my mind.

Manfred

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

I agree that it's probably unwise to toss gear loose into the boat, but I do think the inflatable aspect of the drybags is unnecessary except for where rules require this (Grand Canyon?).

[David Chenault]

The cargo fly hasn't been around long enough for a definitive durability report, but Alpacka did test it quite a bit before releasing it into the wild, and I haven't heard any negative reports (which is more than you can say about the Sawyer paddle they sell). I have a philosophical objection to a zipper on my boat, but given how much you can put inside one, the next packraft I get will almost certainly have one. Gives you a ton of options, if nothing else.

[Dean F.]

What's up with the Sawyer paddle? I assume that you mean the lightweight 5-piece?

[David Chenault]

I can think of a half-dozen instances of folks breaking the blade off the shaft while backpaddling. In fairness, all were the old version.

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