Category Archives: Packrafts

Miraculously, a sunny spell spanned the Easter bank holiday weekend so I took the new TXL down the Thames for its maiden voyage. At Putney I caught the remains of a spring tide but dithered too much so only had a hour until it turned at London Bridge and pushed back up the river. Nevermind, I’ll get as far as I get and hop out anywhere there are some steps or a ladder. With a packraft it’s easily done.

Skeg half out but does the job. One thing I like about longer, centrally positioned packrafts is the the trim is level, not back-heavy as in a conventionally sized rear-sat packraft like my 2K, (unless you are light or it has a hugely voluminous stern, like a Revo)

Floor pad and skeg
This is a similar run I did a couple of months ago in the dead of the Covid winter with the Revo, but this time I remembered to air up the floor pad good and hard. I’m expecting the 2.8-m long, hard-floored TXL to be nippy, and so it is. Setting off the boat skates across the water so that you can ‘paddle – pause/glide – paddle’ like in a kayak, not spin like a food mixer to keep moving.
I fit the skeg but notice from the pix that most of it is out of the water. Don’t think the 2K was like that, but it’s submerged enough to track well. I did wonder why it wasn’t on the flat of the floor for full effect. Perhaps, as with the Nomad S1, it’s not strictly necessary. Something to try next time. As mentioned, I do plan to fit a second skeg on the front to see how that affects crosswinds and sailing.

Seat
They advise using the foam seat block with the floor pad. It feels a bit of an afterthought, adds packed bulk and, as others have reported, is not so comfortable. After 20 minutes I was getting a sore coccyx which was only going to get worse.

Mid-river I shuffled over the twice-as-large inflatable seatbase but soon found it wobbled around on the hard floor pad (like trying to stand on a soft football) in a way these seats don’t when sat on regular packraft floors. This must be why the block seatbase is supplied but the foam is too hard for flatwater cruising. I aired the seatbase right down (easily done in situ) until I was nearly sitting on the floor, but in rougher waters there would still be a wobble and anyway, by then your butt and heels are nearly level like sitting on an iSup board; not an ideal paddling posture.

OMG – non-locking krabs! (fear not, a solution is at hand)

Overall, the raised position on the floor pad does aid good paddling as you can clear the fat sidetubes with the paddle more easily. Sat higher, I would expect stability in rougher water to suffer; at that time you’d want either thigh straps – or just sit yourself lower by easily airing down the floor pad. The backrest is easily adjusted in the boat too, and is held up by thin bungies so it’s easy to shift it up your back if it slips.

For the moment I feel the seat set up in MRS Nomad was a better affair. Partly because I felt it was part suspended/supported from tabs halfway up the side tubes like a hammock, not sat directly on the floor. That means your body weight is spread broadly along on the side tubes, not pressing down solely into the floor, created sagging. And also the flat foam backrest if fitted was better *and I may do the same with TXL).
But, at around half-a-metre square, the TXL seat base is much bigger than previous packraft seatbases I’ve used. Without the floor pad, this broad base may nearly replicate the advantageous load-spreading effect of a Nomad-style side-tab suspended seatbase. An underwater picture will tell all, but I like to think the TXL may be as functional and not much slower without the floor. After all the floor-less Nomad was nippy enough. Since then I think the TXL works well without the floor – or I’ve yet to detect unambiguous advantages.

The TXL’s raised floor jams you less well into the boat sides which is 4cm wider than the Nomad. I quite like a jammed-in feeling but recognise that with a floor pad, added height requires a bit more boat width to maintain stability. Meanwhile, up front there’s plenty of room for feet side by side, unlike in the pointy ended Nomad.

There are a few more evaluations to do with the TXL but it looks promising. Comfortable, supportive seating I know can be an issue with IKs so using the floor pad I’m confident I will either get used to it, find a better seatbase and backrest or find that the pad is not essential for shorter paddles.
Fyi, I have now become very used to using the Flextail electric pump to air up the boat (and the floor), before finishing off with the handpump. It can vacuum shrink the boat too, for compact packing, but rolling up is as quick. As you can see the handy BowBag fits on like it should, too.

Anfibio Vertex Tour paddle
Anfibio sent me their new, four-part, multi-adjustable Vertex Tour paddle to try. It weighs just 890g on my scales, same as my old carbon Aqua Bound Manta Ray, with same-sized blades. A simple lever clamp allows you to set any offset the carbon shaft left or right, as well as vary the length 15cm between 210 and 225cm which is something new to me. Theoretically I can see using the full length with a backwind or a strong current and a short paddle for battling into the wind in ‘low gear’.

Each piece is 63cm long. The all-round shaft felt a bit thinner than normal, and sure enough, measured up around 29mm ø compared to my 32mm Werners which suit my hands better. Smaller handed persons will prefer the Vertex.
The middle clamps up firmly but there was a bit of slack at the paddles; we’re talking less than half a millimetre here but it’s enough to rattle and be noticeable as you release the pressure on lifting the blade out. Does it make difference to non-competitive propulsion? Not really and better too loose than too tight. I wrapped some thin, smooth tape round the ends to eliminate the slack. The Vertex costs €125 – that’s a lot of light and fully adjustable paddle for your money. More here.

Quick test: Anfibio Revo XL packraft (video)

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Early in 2022, as the UK’s Omicron surge peaked, I had a chance to try out a pre-production prototype of Anfibio’s Revo XL packraft. Along with its distinctive forked stern, the Revo introduces a new idea to self-bailing packrafts: a single ~15cm drain funnel under the seat which can be pulled into the boat then rolled up and sealed, like a drybag.
I tried the XL version with a 135cm inner length and 28cm sidetubes. The smaller Revo CL is 10cm shorter all round and has 27cm sidetubes. As you can see my test boat came in lemon and olive. The production boats are cornflower blue and olive for the CL which costs from just €759. That’s a bargain and may fit taller folk better than they think. The Revo XL which I tried costs €999, but in-hull storage TubeBags come as standard. I think the lemon and cornflower is also a better colour combo. Both models come standard with inflatable floor mats to help displace any water inside, as well as 4-point knee braces. The sides are 210D, the floor is a thick 840D which wraps generously up the sidetubes for WW protection, and it’s all assembled by heat welding and sewing; no glue.

What they say (Revo CL here)
The Revo XL is part of the Revos concept – a combination of (closeable) self-drainage, profiled floor and the new TwinTail . Thanks to bilge (spray water runs out through the floor), the boats come without a spray deck and can also be configured as a light, minimalist boats. This results in a unique range of uses from whitewater to touring. The particular construction is similar to the smaller Revo CL:
VenturiTube – the closable bilge hose
TwinTail ^TM – the W-shaped double tail of a surfboard
Comfort BackBand – the combination of back strap and rest
5P Thigh Straps – ergonomically adjustable thigh straps
Firm floor mat – for a stiff, profiled hull
The structure of the boat with and without a floor mat and the various (seat) configurations are the same as in the Revo CL or can be found in the supplied operating instructions.
Revo XL/CL Differences
The XL variant uses a larger outline. It is 10 cm longer, which creates space and speed. It has 28cm side tubes for increased buoyancy and stability. [The CL runs 27cm. And the XL has yellow contrast panels; the CL has olive].
TubeBags* are standard in the Revo XL, which ensures sufficient payload. In addition, a stronger base is used, which is appropriate for potentially high loads. The boat is a good choice, especially for tall and heavy paddlers, multi-day tours or if extra comfort is required. In the XL variant, tall people with a load of up to 120 kg can sit directly on the mat without a seat.

About self-bailing
In a packraft there are two ways of dealing with getting swamped: seal the boat with a deck and spray skirt like a kayak (below left), or let the water drain out via holes in the floor, like a commercial whitewater raft (below right) or a hardshell sit-on top. The latter method has the advantage of being immune to water ingress while also making exiting the deck-free boat faster. The weight of carried water and a perforated floor are said to slow a self-bailer down a bit on flatwater.

ROBfin draining holes and integrated floor

With self-bailing, a thick floor rising above the waterline displaces water carried in the boat, and a seat on top of that means the paddler isn’t sitting in water, even if they may be soaked from waves. Among others, packrafts like MRS, Kokopelli, Mekong and RobFin [link] (more of a small IK) use a line of holes in the floor. You can seal those with some tape, and MRS use valve flaps to smooth the profile and reduce infress. But for the moment only the Revo uses a retractable drain funnel or Venturi Tube, potentially giving you the best of both worlds. They work like similar devices on surf-skis [link]: the movement of the boat over water creates a low pressure zone which sucks water out of the boat provided you keep moving. When you stop the level may rise a bit.

Review: Anfibio Revo XL

Along with a voluminous ‘whitewater’ stern, the Revo has a distinctive and trademarked TwinTail which is said to help the back end bite into the water or catch back surf, like the somersaulting playboat below right. Because using a skeg on whitewater is a bad idea, I can see how the forked stern might replicate a similar digging-in effect, but won’t pretend to know what I’m talking about here. I have seen similar designs on surfboards where it’s called a fishtail.

Either way, a long stern positions you centrally like a kayak, and the high stern volume ought to stop the boat flipping backwards as you exit small waterfalls. Because of the back’s huge buoyancy, I thought I detected a slightly tipped forward aspect to the trim, even with my hibernating 93kg.

Unfortunately, where I live there are no small waterfalls for miles. Were that the case my whole paddling background might be different. So I wasn’t able to test the self-bailing function or the stern’s finely tuned handling characteristics. I suspect there isn’t much more than aesthetics to the Twin Tales design; a cool, 50s Cadillac look, but whitewaterists will have the final say on that.

The seat uses a suspended inflatable backrest, but as this was the XL version, there was not much adjustment left to move the backrest forward enough for me, even at 6′ 1″.
At the back I’d have preferred counter tensioning straps like on the Kokopelli, rather than the thin elastic which makes the backrest wobble about, but you can always use the long packing strap for that. (In fact, the same backrest came with my Sigma TXL which I eventually replaced with a firm backrest and rear straps). The loose seatbase can attach to a strap over the floor pad which is well jammed in. The boat also comes with a hard foam seat base; I didn’t try it on the Revo but did on my own TXL a couple of months later on the Thames and again two-up off the Skye coast: it was soon uncomfortable. I’ve since learned it’s designed to allow bilge water to flow freely to the back of the boat and drain away (the regular air seat would block the flow).

Sat quite high but nice level trim, unlike me in the conventional Rebel 2K

The fitted, Boston-valved floor pad eliminates floor sag and adds overall stiffness to the hull for better response and speed. Sat higher on the pad I thought the Revo might be a bit tippy; not normally a problem with a packraft. On the Thames I soon got used to it; in whitewater not so sure, but too low a centre of gravity can reduce agility.

The four-point knee straps are key to this and I also soon got used to them. Even on flatwater they help your posture and drive by fixing your lower body to the boat. Again, on the XL the mounts were a bit off for me; I ended up using the front tabs, not the daily-chain ladder rungs along the top of the sidetubes.

At nearly 2.5-m long, the Revo looks huge but is actually only 17cm (6.7″) longer than my 2K (left) while having a flatter trim with me in it due to the longer stern adding up to a central seating position. With the stiffer floor, I thought it might have felt faster; perhaps it was but I didn’t notice on the strong outgoing Thames tide. I pulled over and fitted my skeg which reduced some yawing, but realised later I should have topped up the floor mat, as well as the boat, once it had cooled on the water a minute or two.

There’s nothing to stop you using the Revo without the floor pad with drain funnel closed (less bulk when travelling). The backrest might end up a bit high, but you’ll be sat nice and low. I was told the drain funnel’s roll-top closure would be improved on production versions, but after going out of my way to make a really tight roll and clip, only a cup had seeped in over an hour, which is barely more than paddle splash. With the drain tube sealed and with no floor pad but just a seatbase, I don’t think you’ll be swilling around in water seeping up from the funnel. I forgot to try paddling with the funnel open, but all that would have done on the Thames is possibly slow the boat down.

So the Revo: a packraft with a hull-stiffening floor pad, optional self-bailing and knee straps. It ticks all the boxes for playing around in whitewater and sea surf, but with the huge TubeBag storage pockets installed in the hull sides (€140 option on the CL; well worth it), the XL is set up for overnight trips too, with the load providing added stability in the rough stuff or when bombing along under sail.
I knew before I saw it that a Revo wasn’t really a packraft suited to my kind of use. I don’t do challenging whitewater nor sea surf, so can live without self bailing (though I appreciated the deck on the Rebel 2K). Soon after trying the Revo I bought a more conventional Sigma TXL solo/tandem (also with TubeBags and an inflatable floor pad) and so far am very pleased with it on inshore paddles. I’ve fitted some knee straps, but am not sure about the floorpad and did not get on with the inflatable front backrest or the foam seat block.

YouTube overview from ‘Vildmark’

German TV show, Einfach Genial (‘Just Awesome!’)

Packrafting through London – Anfibio Revo

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An hour and a half before sunrise and I am in the midst of a twitter storm. Up above me unseen in the trees the neighbourhood avians are performing their dawn chorus a little ahead of schedule.
I’d been planning to try out a prototype Anfibio Revo for weeks, waiting for a sunny day while failing to pull off more ambitious test venues. In the end they wanted it back so it feel to a transit of the dreary old Thames through London.

But walking to the station, it was clearly far from the predicted freezing night leading to clear skies till noon. No frost glittered on car bodies nor stars twinkled above. Oh well, it’s 6.30am and I’m at the station. I may as well go through with it. Not done the Thames in a packraft before, so there’s that.

At Putney jetty energetic young rowers were hauling out their cheesecutters from the sheds while I fumbled with the Anfibio Revo’s floor pad. At a glance the Revo looks bigger than my 2K so it might be a bit faster. It’s a self-bailer with an unusual drain funnel under the seat (like some Gumotex canoes) rather than the usual lines of holes along the floor’s edge (like the ROBfin; another stillborn test). An 8-mile run along the Thames wasn’t going to test the self-bailing system, but for flatwater the dangling funnel can be pulled in and rolled up like a dry bag to stop the boat filling up.

I am on the water midway through a 6-metre ebb; LW is 11am at the Mayflower pub in Rotherhithe.
The Revo has a high-volume stern typical of whitewater packrafts to stop them flipping backwards when coming out of rapids (I presume).

That old hay bail from my visit last April in the Seawave.
It’s an ancient rivermen’s sign indicating ‘arch closed’ or danger. Could make a nice bird nest too

The Revo seemed to yaw a lot for a long boat. Maybe the floor pad making the floor extra flat doesn’t help.
So I pull over and fit my skeg which made it a bit better

You don’t want to push up against this with 0.55mm of TPU between you and the fetid Thames

Is Battersea Power Station powering again? I hope someone informed the new residents?

I am reminded of the famous Pink Floyd LP cover from 1977.
People ask: What does the pig symbolize in Pink Floyd?
*Along with dogs and sheep, pigs are one of 3 animals represented on the album. The pigs represent people, like [Mary] Whitehouse, who feel they are the moral authorities.*
I was only asking!

The latest scandals? Sigh: where to start, but good to see they’re finally getting the flammable cladding sorted.

9am, all is quiet on the river but as soon as you pass under Westminster Bridge things gets choppier.
My P&S camera is barely coping with this eclipsarian light. What a wash out.

I try some more selfingtons, but the focus is too low

I pull in just before London Bridge. I averaged 5mph for 7.5 miles, but half of that speed was the tide.
Like any packraft, the Revo felt slow at times. You sure miss the *g l i d e* of a long IK.
But it got me here and weighs just 4kg with the floor pad.

Jeez, I’m glad I got off before he bombed through!

A picture of me rolling up the packraft, so you know I’m not making it up.

I decide to climb the ladder for old time’s sake.

Back in summer 2005 with the old Gumo Sunny (my first proper IK) and before I knew about packrafts

Notice the small standing waves you often get just after London Bridge

What is the name of this famous ship?
And who was the illustrious captain?

I find myself in Borough Market for the first time in years, an Aladdin’s souk of upmarket nosebag:
Paradoxically, in the middle is a greasy spoon and before I know it I’m sat before my annual Full English.
After, I buy a giant sourdough loaf for a fiver and some wafer-thin slabs of Comte and Gruyere at only £45 a kilo.

Book review: Rivières Nature en France by Laurent Nicolet

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For reasons of topography and size, France, particularly the south and west, has some great paddling rivers. Mountainous areas not immediately adjacent to the sea produce long rivers along which you can choose the gradient and level of difficulty that suits your ability. And you can do so for days at a time. You can also add unfettered rights of way on the water, though that’s an unfortunate anomaly unique to England and Wales.

What they Say [translated]
RIVIERES NATURE EN FRANCE answers all the following questions.
For each route, you will find:
• level of difficulty (easy to intermediate), the length and duration
• specific regulations for the route
• minimum, maximum and ideal water levels, and how to know them
• access points with gps coordinates
• QR codes to map access ponys and water level stations
• description of the route (km by km, focus on difficulties)
• short hikes off the river (canyons, caves, viewpoints, etc.)
• specific safety advice
• useful addresses (campsites, visits, service providers)
• detailed map with an IGN topographic background

• Must be the ultimate guide to southern French rivers
• The author has been there and paddled it – all bar three of the hundreds of photos are his
• Very nice full page maps detailing portages and rapids
• Parallel river summaries in German
• More IK photos than you can point a paddle at
• With a mobile signal, QR codes for put-ins go straight to your device’s map
• Numerical waypoints also given
• Nice paper and great value per gram
• Printed in Belgium – better sustainability

• It’s in French – domage
• The design can be a bit dense
• Packrafts (and SUPs) not seriously considered

Review
Rivières Nature en France is a similar if far more comprehensive title to the dozen rivers in Best Canoe Trips in the South of France (left) which I’ve used myself. This 416-page book compiled by Laurent Nicolet (distributer of Gumotex IKs and Nortik packrafts in France) lists no less than 100 routes over 63 rivers mostly in the south and west. It also shows parallel short summaries for each route in German and is sold on amazon UK for under £25. The book has more images of IKs than have probably ever been printed – even after my book came out ;-)
This edition seems to supersede an earlier title published in 2018 called Rivières Nature en Kayak Gonflable which is Nicolet’s day job. For years he’s produced videos validating the utility of ‘kayak gonfables’ or KGs in French. It might well be the same or very similar book, but reprofiled away for IKs towards all paddle craft.

All the great rivers of the south are here: Tarn, Ardeche, Dordogne (ideal for beginners), Verdon and the sportier Allier, as well as a whole lot you’ve never heard of. Up front you get a location map (above), after which each river is listed alphabetically and described over a few pages.
There’s the usual advice on what gear to take and safety tips like never tying yourself to the boat (SUP leashees take note) or shooting weirs without checking first. That’s unless there’s a portage-dodging passe canoës or canoe chute (left) – a common feature on French rivers which add greatly to the fun. There’s also an interesting rant against official censures against solo paddling “Imagine such restrictions on walking and skiing!’ Quite right, mon brave.

The author covers the full range of kayaks and canoes, hardshell or inflatable and even packrafts and SUPs (translated above). But less versatile SUPs and packrafts are virtually excluded from the book’s copious imagery, though a decked or bailing packraft could probably managed all the whitewater shown, and there must be some easier rivers which could be ‘boarded. On p379 I’m not sure the bloke balancing upright on some sort of dropstitch picnic table is on a SUP as we know it.
There follows the usual advice on ‘leave no trace’ including using Le Poop Tube en sauvage, an explanation of Class 1-6, the vigicrues website for reading live river levels and which I discovered one time on the Allier, and advice on organising shuttles – all much eased if not eliminated outright by using portable packboats.

I won’t pretend to have read this book cover to cover, were that even possible – I speak French a lot less badly than I read it. But I only recently realised the ease at which a page can be translated with a translation app using a tablet or phone camera, or dropping an image into Google Translate. Reading a translated A4-sized page on a phone screen would be tiresome; easier to do back home on a desktop and print out. Some examples below. Note you have to excise the QR codes or Google goes there.

As a test example, I can concentrate on a river like the Tarn which I’ve done a couple of times both in a packraft and with IKs.

Tarn map. Fairly intuitive icons but no explanatory key and no campsites labelled.

Le Sabiliere – as hard as it gets on the Tarn

The Tarn description focuses on the most popular 57km section from Montbrun to Le Rozier. I have to say I made that 47km measured off Google Maps on my big Tarn map which covers the full 84km run from Florac, 18km upstream from Montbrun, to Millau, 19km after Le Rozier, Using public transport, I found both Florac and Millau better choices to start and end a Tarn packboat paddle. Anyway…

The first thing they advise is avoid the peak holiday period when the Tarn can become a logjam of hardshell rentals and yelping kids (left; actually the Ardeche below a busy campsite). While I’d certainly avoid the Tarn (and indeed France) in August, as a foreigner I found the occasional hullabaloo in July all part of the fun if you just paddle through it. Packed-out campsites along the stage described will be as bad as it gets. And they are packed out.

You then get a river summary: best time of year; regulations (if any); water levels with min, max and ideal levels, plus a QR code going direct to vigicrues – a good use of this idea; the best type of boat; environmental protection (if any); wilderness and tranquility; off-river pedestrian excursions, and where to sleep, but with only a selection of campsites including websites and a phone number. These could have been much more usefully added to each route’s map.
Selected put-ins/take outs have more QRs linked to waypoints which are also printed in old-style DMS (44° 56′ 15.5″ N…), followed by the much less error-prone decimal-degrees (DD: 44.9376297, 2.321622…) format. Google still uses both but the sooner we all get used to simpler DD the better.

Kayaker caught putting-in below the Soucy rock-jumble by the Google drone

Next is the main route description: KM0, KM22.7 and so on. ‘En aval‘ was a new expression on me: ‘downstream’. If your French is a bit ropey – or cordée – it would be worth translating page images in the planning stage, as suggested above, so you don’t find yourself in l’eau chaud. Doing so you’ll come to learn handy expressions like en aval and so on.

The book goes on like this, river after river, with enough photos to help you identify what looks appealing. It celebrates a newly opened passage of the Allier from Naussac all the way to Brioude (114km), though you may want to miss the initial 22km of “no less than 55 distinct rapids [up to Class 4]” which end at Chapeauroux.

Coming up the train line from from Brioude, it was from Chapeauroux one June that I blundered rather naively down the Allier in my early Sunny days, after having found the Dordogne a bit of a doddle the previous year.
As mentioned elsewhere, a dam up from Monistrol (30km below Chapeuroux) has by been rebuilt lowered to salmon-friendly levels so that the long taxi portage I had to do around the now non-existent reservoir from Alleyras is now just an awkward portage down the new dam face at Poutes. (At the back of the book is an article entitled: ‘Hydro-electricity; the least renewable of renewables’). For the 12km from Monistrol to Prades (above left) you’ll again want a deck or self-bailing boat, otherwise you’ll find yourself as I did, pulling over to pour the water out of your boat. From Prades it’s all a less fraught and as enjoyable two days to Brioude.

You can have a lot of fun with the English Rivers Publishing guidebook – in some ways I find the basic design and layout a bit less dense. But once you’ve seen it and done it all, Rivières Nature has many more paddling suggestions in the fabulous south of France.

Book review: The Packraft Handbook by Luc Mehl

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Are there really 450 pages to write about packrafting? Let’s find out!

In a line
You’ll learn more than you’ll ever use from this lavishly illustrated handbook, with loads of safety advice that focuses strongly on the author’s preference for whitewater.

• Presented with an engaging humility and humour which helps deliver important messages
• Sarah Glaser’s vibrant graphics often work better than photos
• Goes from £26 on amazon
• Like the best handbooks, even the experienced will learn something new

• For a 450-page handbook on packrafting there are some odd omissions: no words or pictures about crossrafts or tandem paddling, sailing, bikerafting (bar one loading graphic), even packraft ski-ing which sounds fun and the author seems to have done
• Like similar kayaking books I read ages ago, it can all feel a bit off-putting – which may be a good thing
• Inevitably, Alpacka and Alasko-centric, a magical if unforgiving wilderness with unique challenges.

What they say
The Packraft Handbook is a comprehensive guide to packrafting, with a strong emphasis on skill progression and safety. Readers will learn to maneuver through river features and open water, mitigate risk with trip planning and boat control, and how to react when things go wrong. Beginners will find everything they need to know to get started – from packraft care to proper paddling position as well as what to wear and how to communicate.
Illustrated for visual learners and featuring stunning photography, The Packraft Handbook has something to offer all packrafters and other whitewater sports enthusiasts.

* This review refers to the original 2021, Canada-printed edition self-published by the author, not the 2022 version published by Mountaineers in Seattle and printed in Korea. There may be small differences in content and print quality.

I recall reading Roman Dial’s Packrafting! (right) when I started out and thinking, Oh, there’s really not much to it provided you avoid churning whitewater. At that stage I’d been into IKs a few years and had read the basics in The Practical Guide to Kayaking and Canoeing, a huge, 256-pager by Brit, Bill Mattos. That book covered everything you can do in hardshells but, being more traveller than thrill-seeker, was instrumental in steering me away from the sort of high-adrenaline antics depicted on both covers.

Wisely, Luc Mehl, an environmental scientist and ‘swiftwater’ paddling instructor, opts for a serene front cover, even if he’s a skilled exponent of whitewater action. His blurb above states: “… packrafters and other whitewater sports enthusiasts” suggests he sees packrafts as whitewater boats you can easily travel with, rather than easily portable boats you can take anywhere. That’s an important distinction.
It was produced in response to the death of a fellow packrafting journeyman, as well as several other tragedies befalling close friends. The book’s tagline has been #CultureOfSafety, as in making it second nature to use the right gear, learn appropriate skills, pick the right conditions and make smart decisions, including scouting and if necessary, portaging sketchy situations.
Inside, The Packraft Handbook uses thick, glossy paper to help Sarah Glaser’s graphics jump off the page. As a result it weighs nearly a kilo and must have cost a fortune to print before Mountaineers picked it up in 2022.

Early on, there’s an aside which resonated with me. “Many topics in this book won’t seem relevant until you experience missteps. It is more important to know what is in the book than to understand it all.”
Having written similarly weighty handbooks on other subjects, that’s something I’ve frequently heard from readers: it’s only after having been there and done that, including bad decisions or choices, that they get what the book was telling them all along. This will doubtless be the case with The Packraft Handbook.

Tellingly, Luc Mehl found that kayaking whitewater in hardshells accelerated his skill development much faster than a packraft. Sure, a packraft feels stable but when it flips it does so with little warning, unlike a hardshell creekboat with far superior secondary (‘on edge’) stability. The point, of course, is a packraft is so much easier to carry overland for days at a time that the compromises are worth it. I skimmed over most of the technical whitewater paddle strokes which, as in Bill Mattos’ kayak book, is stuff with little application to the type of packrafting I did then or do now.

Even before you get to page 99, it becomes clear that both Luc Mehl and many of his intrepid contributors who supply pithy, lesson-learning asides, have had several close calls while ascending their packrafting learning curves, mostly in the unforgiving Alaskan wilderness.

Then you take someone like me who’s never fallen out of a packraft, yet enjoys their amazing potential just the same. Aside from the fact that I live in the opposite of Alaska, one explanation may be the graph (below) featured in an interesting section on risk, ‘safety drift’ and ‘heuristic traps’. We learn that three often repeated words are key to assessing risk: Hazards, your Exposure and subsequent Vulnerability.

I was so old when I started packrafting I’m off the graph!

Having learned the basics in the Mattos book, I got a bit bogged down in the slightly over-technical How Rivers Work though it was interesting to read that bedrock rapids have a more dangerous character than silt riverbeds, perhaps because they resemble hard-edged, man-made wiers. And, along with the regular inclusion of snappy ‘Pro Tips’, I liked the ‘River as a series of conveyor belts’ graphic analogy – a novel way of explaining the complex flows of rapids.

I have to admit before I was even halfway through I was beginning to skim more and more river-running lore, while enjoying the boxed-out anecdotes which are the gravy in books like this. While I had a familiarly with what was being expounded, aspiring to master nifty river moves is just not what I do. My ability, such as it is, plateaued years ago while my risk tolerance drops by the second. Still, it all needs to be written down and explained in one authoritative source, and all the better from a specifically packrafting viewpoint building on many years experience.

The section on open-water crossings is based on the travels and subsequent material by Bretwood Higman and Erin McKittrick, whose record of their epic journey, A Long Trek Home I read soon after getting my first Alpacka.
I paid a bit more attention here as in Scotland it’s the most exposed packrafting I might do. That section includes the sobering account of a British bikerafter who drowned during a Patagonian lake crossing of just 2km, and where having his boat leashed to his paddle or himself – a massive whitewater no-no – may have saved him.
I’m reminded of another formative book I read ages ago: Sea Kayaking Deep Trouble; US-based analyses of sea padding fatalities and rescues, and crucially, what lessons can be learnt. Luc Mehl curates a webpage of known packraft fatalities which similarly hopes to inform packrafters on how to avoid getting in too deep.

As a result of reading most of this book, I finally did something about a couple of safety and entrapment issues that have been lightly bugging me for years: I ditched a cheap, heavy (and barely used) locking rescue knife for an as-heavy but quick-grab NRS Pilot Knife which at the same time can also replace my never used Benchmark rope-cutter. (Maybe I missed it but, despite the repeated dangers of entrapment, I saw no mention of such knives in the Handbook). And I got round to fixing a reusable ziptie to a bow attachment loop to retain my bunched-up mooring line when on the water. ‘Wayward Lanyard’ a mate called it last weekend. He has all his early LPs.

As things get more serious in When Things Go Wrong your attention span may falter in the face of elaborate river-rescue techniques, including rolling your capsized raft (depicted in a series of graphics that make the technique very clear – a first for me), as well as increasingly intricate shore-based rope recoveries which are probably better watched or practised than read about.

Equipment Repair and Modification is a valuable resource of proven recommendations and ideas for tapes, glues and what works best for just about every sort of eventuality. It’s bound to be of use to many. Similar content appears on Luc Mehl’s website.
Medical Emergencies underlines, among other things, the importance of understanding cold-water shock – the reflex which most commonly leads to drowning long before you’ve had a chance to catch hypothermia. Here I also learned something that’s puzzled me: why some drowning survivors still end up dying a few days later: pulmonary edema.
At one point Luc Mehl describes how shooting off waterfalls down in balmy Mexico gave him a new perspective on risk – as in things felt less dangerous in the tropics. I remember thinking the same thing while struggling to kayak along Australia’s Ningaloo Reef. The wind was howling, the waves were annoying, but it all felt a lot less scary than it could have because it was sunny and warm. No risk of cold-water shock here, just being swallowed by a whale shark.
The final two chapters about backpacking gear and trip planning were surprisingly skimpy; a sign of end-of-book syndrome? As it is, backpacking gear choices are highly subjective and are repeated all over the blogosphere (not least here!). The planning chapter felt very Alaska- and river centric (not much about the terrain in between which can be as challenging). But if you can pull off a successful backcountry trip in Alaska, you can probably do so anywhere.
The book ends with no less than 16 pages of glossary and an appendix listing sources and additional resources. Design-wise, I’d say it’s bad form to have short boxed asides rolling over the page – across a spread would have been better. And it’s a shame that all of Sarah Glaser’s graphics (mixed in with some of the author’s?) weren’t in vibrant colour; that would have made a stunning book as it’s a great look which vividly delivered the lessons.
Much as Bill Mattos’ hardshell book helped guide me towards my current packboat interests, a first-time packrafter with big ambitions is bound to value having the thrills and spills of whitewater packrafting laid out in The Packraft Handbook, all the better to decide what sort of packrafting appeals to them.

Preview: Advanced Elements Packlite+ packrafts

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As it was with kayaks, so it is with packrafts. AE are the first to produce a solo and two-person packraft with a removable dropstitch floor.

For years packrafters have used the idea of shoving in sleeping mats as floors, and right now Anfibio sell slot-in Multimats to fit some of their boats. The idea is improved rigidity for a better glide, insulation for your legs in very cold conditions as well as raising your seating position for better visibility and paddle draw, stability notwithstanding. Plus longer packs like my TXL will sag less when paddled solo.

One problem with a regular packraft’s plain floor sheet is that the weight of the paddler sags downwards (as above), making a wear-prone low point in shallow rivers as well as not doing wonders to a packraft’s glide, such as it is.
Being at the heavier end of the human spectrum, one pre-emptive solution I used on my Alpackas was a double layer of floor fabric or ‘buttpatch’, as Alpacka called them. It meant I could scrape through shallow rapids, knowing the 840D floor was a little more protected withg another sheet of 840D. This is a bit less of an issue these days when packraft sterns are longer which means the solo paddler is more centrally seated and less back-heavy

The DS floors on the AE Packlite+ packrafts eliminate this sag with all the benefits stated above. And being a separate panel, you can choose to use it or not, if weight and bulk matters. The DS floor’s pressure is 4-6psi, clearly enough to stand up and paddle the raft like a board at 1.5mph. It also makes getting in easier, in that you can stand on the firm floor (left).

Despite the orange Prop65 warning label usually associated with PVC (for sales in California), AE’s new packrafts are made from 210D TPU. Interestingly, the hull uses a high-pressure raft valve as opposed to the more common Boston valves, but this is probably to simplify inflation as the DS floor must use a valve like this, so they may as well be doubled up. It should mean the hull can hold a bit more pressure to make a really rigid boat.
The boats also have about 14/20 attachment loops, carry handles and even a 530-cm TiZip for in-hull storage. Nice touch. Plus you get carry bag and barrel pump and the longer boat gets a skeg.
Just as with IKs, I think a DS floor’s main benefit will be on longer packrafts like the tandem which could be used solo to make a fast boat similar to the MRS Nomad, but without sag.

The Packlite+ AE3037 costs $899 and weighs 6.1kg, or 13.4 lbs (KG) and as little as 3.2kg with no floor or seat. It’s 99cm wide (39″) and 221cm long (7.25′).

The tandem Packlite+ XL AE3038 goes for $1199, weighs from 8.3kg ( 18.3 lbs) down to 4.4kg. It’s also 99cm wide (39″) and 3m (9.9′) long.

Autumn on the Medway

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Monday was the calm after the first big storm of autumn, a sunny day to packraft 8 miles along the Medway from Tonbridge to Yalding station. With recent heavy rains, I was expecting a noticeable current on the usually placid Medway whose flow is constrained by numerous locks.

I’ve been caught out on this river before by massively dropped water levels (usually during winter maintenance), so I remembered to check the river status on the website. Oddly it claimed all was normal, but the Medway was clearly up to the grass and I wondered if the five canoe chutes downstream may be closed. Oh well, each lock or weir has a handy low-level jetty so a little portaging will be some extra exercise. It wasn’t till I got back home that I saw they’d issued the warning you see above left.

The noise of the thundering weir at Tonbridge Town Lock put me on edge, and as I set off across the carpet of white scum the over-loaded weir had generated, I was mindful of the latest in a series of revelations about how much raw sewage gets dumped directly into English rivers and coasts by water treatment plants (it’s said fines are cheaper than treatment). A week ago it’s said public outrage had forced the government to reverse a vote against regulating raw sewage dumping.
In fact, it seems intensive livestock production is a greater threat to healthy, biodiverse rivers. A few months ago activist George Monbiot exposed how the Wye (which we packrafted last spring) was choking to death from the effluent produced by cattle, pig and chicken installations in its catchment area. The brown, flood-charged brown waters swirling around me now took on a different meaning.

The Medway was moving like a proper unfettered river at a pace I’d not seen before. Small eddies, boils and whorls spun up to the surface at each bend or constriction, and occasionally the boat got pushed or pulled about.

On arriving at Eldridge Lock, the very shallow-gradient chute had burst its banks, so to speak, and was twice as wide as normal, with the metal edges of the channel hidden in the brown murk. A little taken aback, I was too focussed on keeping the packraft in line to take a photo. Once down, the powerful eddies belting out of the churning weir right alongside the chute took a bit of digging to get across, before carrying on downstream through the frothed-up scum.
As a longer boat could have got crossed up and flipped over in the unconstrained chute, you’d think think they’d have closed it.

Porters Lock chute. Straightforward but often closed (as today) for no obvious reason

Downriver, the gate was closed on the Porters Lock chute, which appeared the same as normal and perfectly straightforward. With the base of the chute separated from the adjacent weir’s turbulence, I slipped under the bar, as I’ve done before, and shot the chute with ease.

Oak Weir chute. Same as normal but closed.

The next two chutes at the similar East- and Oak Weir Locks were also unflooded if flowing briskly within their sides. But the gates were too low to slip under, so I rolled out of the boat and carried it down to the jetty.

Sluice chute running a bit harder on another day

With the strong current and a helpful back breeze, I got to the final chute at Sluice Weir in what felt like no time. Branches and other debris obscured the entry point which, even at the best of times, is difficult to nose up to to check the chute was clear without getting sucked in.

Because you never know what may be jammed half way down the chute until you tip over the edge, I decided to cross over to the jetty on the other bank and have a look before hurtling down.

Just as well as, although the chute was clear and running shallow within it sides, the thundering weir alongside span a back eddy clockwise right into the placid drop zone. The packraft would have almost certainly skimmed over to the flow, but as I was right by the put-back-in jetty, the ‘dare’ didn’t seem worth the risk. Messing about near weirs can end badly. Maybe it was a matter of timing on the day, but it seemed ironic that two potentially dodgy chutes were open, while the three straightforward ones were closed.

All that remained was the last mile or two to Yalding Weir and on down the short, deadwater canal to Hampton Lock for a wipe, roll up and the 14:40 back to London.

Preview: Decathlon Itiwit 500 Packraft

See also:
Itiwit 100 Packraft

After doing so well with their budget IKs, Itiwit, Decathlon’s paddle sports brand, have entered the packraft market with the TPU Itiwit Adventure 500 Packraft. Complete with a 50-cm TiZip for in-hull storage, thigh straps and a ‘bikerafting’ deck, you pay 500€, were it available.
The boat was launched online in August 2021, then withdrawn, some claimed due to safety issues (see below). It was online again in the UK when I wrote this in September. Note UK Decathlon only sell the 100, although the 500 appears online in European stores.
Rated at WW2, above left it looks mostly black but is actually ‘Dusty green / Blood orange’, as the action shots below clearly show. There’s an online manual here.

As with hardshells (especially sea kayakers) vs inflatables), there can be a certain ‘know-all’ snobbery, evident here too when a huge outfit like Decathlon – known for their keenly priced, own-brand outdoor gear – barge in on the cottage industry of packrafting.
Those scoffers may like to look at Itiwit’s X500 IK; no one else has even got close to making an FDS IK like that, so it’s a mistake to assume Decathlon only bang out cheap crap for the masses. I doubt Itiwit sell many X500s, but from £260, I bet their wide-as-a-door budget IKs are the best selling budget inflatables in the UK, if not Europe. River-pootling, dog-in-the-boat recreationalists absolutely love them. Packrafts being pretty similar, the ‘Adventure 500’ will be popular too (as often, Itiwit are vague or inconsistent about model names). At Decathlon you get a lot for your money and they are also helpfully on hand to clarify the difference between rafting and packrafting.

Size is 230cm x 90cm which is near identical to my Rebel 2K and a do-it-all packrafting standard, even if the image above left above suggests it’s some 13cm longer, assuming the width is 90cm. The claimed weight comes in at a hefty 3.8kg; that’s PVC packraft territory though includes all the kit shown left. There is no mention of TPU denier, tube diameter or internal dimensions, though they’re probably standard too. One reviewer even doubts it is TPU.

The carry bag doubles as a dry bag (like Gumotex IKs) but also works as the inflation bag via a tube. Three uses; quite clever if not weight minimalising. The packraft (and the bag?) has a regular Boston valve like Itiwit IKs, so you’d then use that tube or the boat valve to top up by mouth. Give it all you got: a firm boat responds much better on the water.

The bag and both valves state: ‘Maximal Pressure 1 psi / 0.7 bar‘ which is almost down to slackraft level, but there’s no way of telling when you reach that pressure. Like most well-made TPU packrafts, it ought to be able take a more than that and unless you’re Tarzan, you can’t over-inflate a packraft with your lungs. Left in the sun out of the water, dark green may heat up and raise internal pressures quicker than much lighter colours, though packrafts stretch better than IKs. I’ve not heard of a proper packraft blowing a seam due to overheating, unlike countless cheap PVC IKs. Meanwhile, the conformity label (below right) states a more realistic 1.5psi / 0.1 bar.

The hull’s raised lashing/carry straps look fairly chunky and will be easy to grab from the water. But despite what is claimed, the ‘deck’ can’t keep out splashes over the bow; they’ll just stream right into your lap, even if it does appear to make a good platform for a bike. Good on Itiwit for recognising the appeal of bikerafting (on social media, at least). It will all help potential buyers ‘get’ packrafting.

The inclusion of thigh straps (badly translated as ‘knee pads’) seems odd, given the boat’s profile and implied WW2 use. It suggests Itiwit misunderstood the product, or tried to be a bit too clever with added features. Thigh straps definitely help when using any inflatable beyond Grade 2 white water – ie: when some skill and technique must be applied alongside raw nerve. But realistically, you’d need a proper sealed deck or a self-bailer to tackle such conditions. This boat will be swamped after the first couple of rapids.

It was pointed out that the small sprung-gate snaplinks aka: karabiners (‘biners’ or ‘krabs’) used to attach the straps to the hull are an entrapment hazard. Rock climbing practice has long recommended using screw-gate (locking) krabs on the climber’s harness, even if loads of sprung-gate (open) krabs are dangling off it, attaching the gear. Below from the manual: orange krabs at the front, black by the seat. Rationale unknown, but may become so on seeing the actual boat.

A few years ago I recall Alpacka’s founder was reluctant to introduce any type of thigh strap (however attached) to her growing range of white-water packrafts. Iirc, Alpacka even experimented (unsuccessfully) with strap-free knee blocks. A hardshell creek boat has them under the deck to help triangulate your body and transform control from the hips. For gnarly white-water, surf and not least rolling, straps are pretty much essential on appropriately decked (or bailed) IKs and packrafts. Elsewhere they’re just not needed as unlike an IK (not least a boxy FDS), a packraft is a cozy fit round the hips and against the back and feet, providing bracing and connection like a well-laced running shoe.
While inadvertently getting your pfd straps hooked to the Itiwit’s mini sprung-gate krab is faintly possible while getting rolled around in a Grade-4 stopper, it’s much more likely with full-size krabs. Thigh straps are the bigger entrapment hazard, as is any loose, foot-trapping rigging on a boat, on top of the many other ways of coming to grief on eaux vivant. In more sedate flatwater paddling scenarios, regular open krabs are a handy way of quickly securing stuff; my boats have several, though I find myself using corrosion-free SoftTies more and more.
Go ahead and fit screw-gate/locking krabs or a chunky re-usable SoftTie; your entrapment risk will not be eliminated if you get in trouble. For normal packrafting, I’d simply remove the straps to reduce the clutter.

Though not mentioned, there’s a line of adjustment tabs on the floor, possibly footrest mounts for shorter folk? But no backrest, which are largely redundant on a packraft anyway. Under the deck is some tensionable elastic cord to stash your carry bag up out of the way once on the water. Nice touch, or another entrapment hazard? Lord oh lord, what a minefield!

There’s also what looks like a whole lot of buoyancy at either end, though they rate it at 125kg; boater with gear. Then again – unlike with IKs – when’s the last time anyone ever rated a packraft’s buoyancy? It’s such a vague metric and as it is, I’m not sure I’ve ever come close to 125 kilos; camping with a bike may push it to that limit.
More impressions when/if one turns up at my local Decathlon store.

Land, Sea & Loch: Packrafting Knoydart

Anfibio Rebel 2K main page
MRS Nomad S1 main page

Some possible land & sea routes around Knoydart. All land routes are trails or tracks, fwiw

Looming over the Sound of Sleat opposite the Isle of Skye, Knoydart is a famously rugged peninsula that’s inaccessible by road; part of the so-called Rough Bounds. Rising north of Loch Nevis, the mountains top out at the 1020-metre (3346′) summit of Ladhar Bheinn (‘Larven’), before dropping back down to Loch Hourn. On an OS map, contour lines here are as dense as spaghetti and to the south, Loch Morar is Europe’s deepest body of freshwater. Sounds like packrafting country!

It took just a morning to stitch together a challenging three-loch loop via Loch Quioch, but once I got there the initial 20-km stage down the channel of Loch Hourn looked a bit daunting alone in the untried packraft sailing outfit and required a 4am start at Low Water if I was to do the loch in one tide. By the time I tried something else, I was pushed back by wind and tide, so I settled for a good look around, tested the sail on the Rebel 2K, the Six Moon Designs Flex PR pack harness and a new tent before returning a fortnight later with Barry with whom I’d paddled the River Wye last April.

Driving up to Mallaig freed us from train timetables, which left the weather and 18-kilo packs as our main constraints. Unfortunately, the forecast dropped an F5 headwind on the Friday we planned to paddle out of Loch Nevis back towards Morar or Mallaig. Along with agreeable tide timings, I realised this was a limitation of circular packrafting routes on the Scottish west coast: chances are you’ll hit a prevailing southwesterly which may slow your packraft to a crawl (as I’d found). Depending on where you are, that can mean turning back or a tough walk out. Maybe both.

Red and blue: this trip. Green: earlier visits. two 1000m+ summit excursions also shown

So Barry and I flipped the plan: hike 16km from Inverie (the only village on Knoydart) over to Barisdale, paddle inner Loch Hourn (7km), walk up to Loch Quoich (8km), cross it and then head 6km to a bothy in desolate Glen Kingie. From here, on Windy Friday we’d walk 6km over another pass to the 20-km long Loch Arkaig and try and sail the F5 west, maybe getting as far as Fort William via the River Lochy, though gusts out here were tagged at 40mph. At Fort William we’d catch the train back to the car in Mallaig.