The other week I bought myself a Dahon folding bike, a long-established American brand with a French sounding name that’s probably made in China and in the UK is much less pricey than better known Bromptons. Folders seem to be going cheap right now as older folk move to e-bikes. I still have a couple of pedalling years left in me, I hope. At least 8 years old, my Dahon Mu has an unusual (and long discontinued) SRAM Automatix 2-speed hub, V-brakes and once folded up, weighs just 11kg (my MTB is 15kg). I could’ve waited for a 7- or 8-speed hub, but thought I’d give the Automatix a try plus I don’t mind having one less cable and mechanism to operate. It shifts up automatically at a round 10kph; a bit too soon some say, but there’s an easy mechanical hack around that.
The Dahon reminds me of my Ferrari-red Raleigh Moulton I had in the late 60s, possibly my first two-wheeler. Along with being a groovy Sixties design, I think my mum thought small wheels = ‘sensible’, like a shopping bike. ‘Sensi-Schmensi? Hold my Tizer!’ My innovative ‘full suspension’ Moulton folded too, only not in a good way. Too much bombing around on Mitcham Common doing Evel Kinevel jumps one weekend saw the seat tube and stays fold backwards after one heavy landing. A decade and a half later California brought us the Apple Mac and mountain bikes and we never looked back.
Midsummer 2012, Joe Sheffer and Al Humphreys bikerafted to the top of Shetland using folding bikes. That’s my very first green Alpacka Joe’s paddling, a Denali Llama, just before Alpacka introduced the much copied extended stern.
Years ago I tried bikerafting in northwest Scotland with my MTB. Up there it didn’t really work, the few roads were empty enough, but what paths and tracks there were were tricky on a bike with a boat strapped to it. I wrote in 2012…
… add a bike and any off-roading becomes marginal up here [FNWS]. Most of the time you’ll be pushing or carrying, especially with an overnight load. No MTB is really rideable on the footpaths up here, although unlike England and Wales, since 2003 Open Access allows cycling on all footpaths (there are no bridleways). Cross country and off the footpaths, at times you can barely walk, let alone ride a bike
This time round I have a bigger packraft and a smaller bike. I pedalled down to the station and got a train to Pokesdown, a 10-minute cycle from Iford bridge (below) near the tidal limit of the River Stour. On the water I moved the seat back and dropped the folded bike at the front. Unlike a regular bike, the folded Dahon sits part in the boat so there’s no real need to strap it down on the long TXL. I put the bag under my knees and set off about 1pm on a rising neap tide (right) but set to stay level in the harbour for the next few hours. Winds were 6-8mph from the southwest.
Iford bridge at the tidal limit of the River Stour.
From Iford bridge, or Tuckton just downriver is a popular paddle boarding spot and a couple of women were putting in with me. You can see why. You soon leave any impression of urbanity and drift along between the lush trees with little other traffic.
Add the blue sky and all in all, these were as ideal packrafting conditions as you’ll get. The TXL feels a bit heavy with the 12kg bike, or I’m out of paddle practice.
I pass a chap doing up an solo ocean rowing boat. It wasn’t this one which washed up nearby recently. Even with favourable currents and winds, it amazes me a single person can row a ton of boat across an ocean. But they can and they do.
I just read about Michael Walther, who adapted a similar boat was planning to ‘SUP the Atlantic’. He set off from Spain and in two weeks covered 1150km to the Canaries averaging 3.9kph. Explanations seem vague (boat damaged close to the port) but the trip ended there.
Soon rows of mega boats crop up with the the priory behind. Christchurch is like a millionaires’ Wareham.
Past Christchurch the land opens out. I sense the sea ahead.
A lot of boat for a little space. But a lot more stable than a little Dahon Mu with a packraft on the back.
I stray too far north into the protected shallows with just six inches of water. The marked boating channel follows the harbour’s southern edge.
From Hengistbury hill looking north. Note the tourists train for the weary of limb.
The harbour’s narrow outlet at Mudeford Quay.
Mudeford Quay from the hill.
As I passed through the channel I was hoping to be temped ashore by the aroma of sizzling seafood.
No discernible tidal flow in the channel today. Out into Christchurch Bay it’s only 13km to the Isle of Wight
Wanting to string things out, I paddled south into the wind and tide towards Hengistbury Head. It felt a bit more fun to be pressed against the elements (knowing there’s only 10 minutes of it).
I take out at the last beach before the Head.
That was an easy and very enjoyable paddle. Only 8km over 90 minutes.
‘That’s a good set up you got there’ said a woman. ‘Yes it is’, I replied. The complete solution to amphibious mobility for the recreational enthusiast (I did not add).
I weave along trail across the beach
Harbour map. A fun place to explore with bike or boat or both.
It’s about 8km back to Pokesdown station, half of it on tracks.
Christchurch Priory and the water meadows, as not painted by Constable.
Only a tenner for 2 slices and a big cappucho. I suppose I needed the energy but that cherry slice had enough sugar in it to preserve a herd of dugong.
Looking at the OS map left, you might think it’s like packrafting through London, but nothing could be further from the truth. A tranquil, tree-lined river leads to a glittering inland marina and medieval church and a swan-speckled natural harbour beyond. Once out in the Bay, with the usual southwesterly you could carry on up the coast to Highcliffe, a couple of train stops up from Christchurch. Or with a higher tide, poke around the harbour. And just after the Priory, the Avon river comes in from the north. Someone suggested it’s possible to do a 2km tidal loop off the Stour and back. One for next time. Ironed out for some blundering around on the way back, that was about 18km from Pokestown station, with 8km of very enjoyable paddling. Without the bike it would have been a long walk back, though there is a summertime ferry from Mudeford Quay back up river. So this particular outing was well suited to bike rafting. With the wobbly payload, the comparative lack of stability, just two gears and the feeling I might snap something if I rode it like my MTB, the Dahon forces me to slow down. Not a bad thing. Next time on salt water, I might put it in a bag, so I don’t have to rinse and lube it back home, but I’m looking forward to more mini foldingbikerafting trips, where flatter roads and tracks allow.
An old mate got in touch to tell me he’d bought himself a top-of-the-range MRS R2 Barracuda Pro and heck, even my packrafting book. He’s in Devon and I was in Dorset so I suggested we meet up for a Yuletide splash-about. Back in the day we were desert bikers; now we’re packrafting pensioneers.
Like some do with a new activity, Phil had got stuck right into his MRS and had already paddled to Dartmouth with his Brompton bike (left), something over in Norfolk, then scared himself further up the rain-swollen Dart from Buckfastleigh to Totnes, noting ‘it’s amazing how dangerous the big branches [and fallen trees] are…’
Tell me about it. If it’s not weirs or camo-&-beard anglers spitting poison darts, it’s deadly sweepers blown down by winter storms. I never quite got round to doing the Dart in my fearless prime, such as it was, but I hear in winter it’s one of the Southwest’s whitewater classics – a bit serious for me now. We settled on the Teign out of Newton Abbot with our respective bangers parked at either end.
If nothing else, we ought to have a good backwind. The previous night had peaked at around 50mph, but by dawn it was tailing off to half that, with the usual gusts at +50%, single-digit temps and showers. A good day for a drysuit and a stable packraft.
Some quick stats on Phil’s noire ‘cuda: 3.6m x 99 wide with 217cm inside and up to 7.6kg with the removable deck, two seats and internal storage, all for a hefty £1750. Compared to my TXL, it’s 80cm longer or nearly 12 feet in old money; our Micra’s shorter than that! It’s also 10% wider than the TXL, about 35cm longer inside so loads of room for 2 adults. Solo/no deck it gets down to 5.6kg alongside the TXL’s 3kg.
We drove around Newton looking for parking and a put-in. Opposite the racecourse and over a broken roadside fence we found a spacious river bank just at the Teign’s tidal reach. By the time we set off we were in the middle of a 3.5-m ebb, midway between springs and neaps. Either way, like the Frome the other day, the Teign was ripping along at a light jog and before I’d got myself untangled from my gear I was 75m downstream. I thought I’d finally got to grips with keeping it all in one bag, but Today’s Forgotten Item was my seat base [forehead slapping emoji]: ‘Gear drifts apart; the centre cannot hold. Mere forgetfulness is loosed upon the world‘. By chance I had a spare Anfibio Bouy Boy which did the job as a seat cushion.
The Barracuda has the same distinctive prow design as my old MRS Nomad which was a fast solo packraft, what MRS call StreamLineSL. These prows take up nearly 1.5m in the R2 which explains the massive length while still having a lot of room inside the boat. There’s probably enough buoyancy for four people and a caribou calf, with room for all their gear inside the ISS hull storage.
Before we knew it we’d passed under the A380 bridge and were out in the wide tidal estuary. The predicted 20mph winds came barrelling down the channel so I couldn’t resist flipping out my WindPaddle. With the Barracuda’s mooring line clenched in my teeth I managed the sail while Phil’s phone recorded 8 knots, obviously helped by the falling tide.
There were a few forceful gusts and the fetch kicked up towards the end, but the TXL and Barracuda shrugged it all off and my transverse bow sprit (left) did a great job of steadying the straining sail. I think the MRS has wider attachment points on the bow so may not need it, but I’m sure Phil will be buying a PackSail if Anfibio can do him one in black. He did.
Things got a bit chilly out in the deeper water and I noticed my TXL was creasing a bit at the sides. It’s been so many months since I last used it I’d forgotten high-volume packrafts need a second top-up a few minutes in to get good and taut. It didn’t seem to affect speed, but like properly laced shoes, taut feels better. That’s one good thing with Phil’s black boat; it auto pressurises in the pale winter sun. While we sailed, he tucked into his lunch.
The Teign estuary is actually not too industrialised. Under the last bridge The Salty sandbank was starting to emerge from the chop and as we curved round to the river mouth the sidewind pushed us into moored craft caked in algae. At the narrow outlet a rip of bouncing clapotis was jiggling out to sea and on the beach someone was striking poses for their Insta feed.
A little over an hour for 5 and a bit miles, just about all of it sailing both boats. It was interesting to learn that the WP could sail two big boats without much loss of speed. Staggering ashore, it felt odd not to be arm knackered, but once I got over that we headed into the deserted seaside town in search of the legendary Teignmouth Beast. That’s a local XXL pasty, not the jet-black MRS Barracuda.
I’ve done a few IK paddles in Southeast England between Rye and Portsmouth, but the Sussex and Hampshire coasts aren’t that inspiring. So it’s about time I started exploring the far more interesting and much more extensive Southwest Coast. From the Isle of Wight to Cornwall and back up to the Severn there are scores of inshore excursions possible in an inflatable. Just as in the far northwest where I mostly sea paddle, all you need is a fair tide and paddle-friendly winds, the latter a bit less rare down south.
In a blobby packraft? You cannot be serious!
So in the face of predicted moderate winds I cooked up a 50-km Jurassic overnighter from Weymouth to Swanage in Dorset. I’m pretty sure they opportunistically rebranded the plain old Purbeck or just ‘Dorset’ coast as the ‘Jurassic Coast‘ soon after that 1993 movie and haven’t looked back since. Like much of the Southwest coast, the beaches and country lanes become a logjam of holidaymakers on a warm summer’s day. On the water, our paddle would pass below sections of cliffs a couple of miles long and take us to the famed landmarks of Lulworth Cove, Durdle Door arch (top of the page) and Dancing Ledge. We could even carry on back north past Old Harry’s Rocks and across Studland Bay right into Poole Harbour to catch out trains home.
TXL at sea
Compared to using regular (solo) packrafts, my confidence in my TXL for sea paddling is a revelation. After all, it’s still just another blobby, single-chamber packraft. It must be a combination of the added size giving a kayak-like perception of security (as I found in my MRS Nomad), as well as the responsiveness and speed from a longer waterline and, I now recognise, the sometimes noticeable added glide from the Multimat floor. There’s also the fact that paddlechum Barry was up for the Dorset run in his similar MRS Nomad, making this untypical packraft outing less daunting.
Lulworth tides – all or nothing (of not much).
Modest, two-metre tides off Purbeck
For some bathymetric reason – possibly the Atlantic tidal surge backing up in the Straits of Dover, plus hidden offshore shelves – the tides off the east Dorset coast are very odd: they can rise or drop all day, but have a range of just two metres, about as low as it gets in the UK. That ought to mean moderate ebb flows pushing up against prevailing westerlies, plus we were heading into neaps. And while often cliff-bound, if we stayed alert to escape routes we could easily bail and walk or climb out with our packrafts.
East of Lulworth Cove the Jurassic Coast‘s bucket & spade Babylon is interrupted by a 5-mile wide Danger Area – an army firing range. This was probably not one of UNESCO’s criteria for World Heritage status, but the SW coastal path also gets closed for a similar distance. Barry’s Reeds Almanac had a page or two on this (left), as well as useful tidal flow charts (drops to the west; rises east). I left it to Barry to call the ‘0800 DUCK!’ number, but imagined surely they’d leave the target practice to the off season. In fact they’re all it most of the time Mon–Fri, including an evening session 9pm to midnight: all we had to do was click this.
fishing.app – handy and similar toa Reeds Almanac but free
Early train to Weymouth
With a plan taking shape, I in turn bought a copy of Pesda’s South West Sea Kayaking in the hope of being alerted to local anomalies. I’m glad I did. It turned up with just hours to spare and identified that the run from Kimmeridge Bay round the Purbeck corner to Swanage was a grade up from the easy section from Weymouth. With headlands, submarine ledges and long lines of cliffs, without a foot recce I decided we may be better off skipping this bit.
It’s noon in Weymouth, but with offshores now predicted by late afternoon, we fast forward by taxi to Ringstead Bay, 5 miles in. That first section from Weymouth looks nothing special.Put in at Ringstead. Ten mph westerlies blowing against an ebbing neap tide.My Mk2 transverse bowsprit for a wide WindPaddle sail mount to limit swaying in stronger winds. I’m giving the Multimat floor yet another go too, all the better to skim over the water. We’re on the water at 1pm, hoping to reach Chapman’s Pool, about 21km away. But around 5pm winds are said to veer offshore and strengthen, so we’ll see. We sail at about 5-6kph – not much faster than paddling – but I note my TXL creeps forward about half a click faster than the MRS – must be the stiffening Multimat.Propelled at paddling speed by his inflatable AirSail, Barry casually checks his investment portfolio.The cliffs below Chaldon Downs. At times we paddled as we sailed to make less work for the wind.Forty five minutes in, I pull in the sail and line the TXL up to thread Bat’s Head arch. Note how the layers of chalk beds here have been pushed up to nearly vertical. Give it half a million years and Bat’s Head will be as big as nearby Durdle Door.Approaching the famous Durdle Door arch alongside a crowded beach. The TXL still weathercocks a bit under sail; I keep having to steer hard inland, but the bowsprit ‘stick’ limits the sail’s ability to twist. Or maybe the wind’s bouncing off the cliffs and blowing us offshore a little. Sitting further back to weight the back end over the waves may help.Sunbathers watch spellbound as Barry smoothly ‘Durdles the Door’ – a Southwest kayaker’s rite of passage.The Door has been durdled. Some claim ‘Dorset’ (formerly Wessex) was named after this famous arch. In high summer young bloods jump off the 60-metre arch. Appropriately, it’s called ‘tombstoning’.Near the entrance into Lulworth Cove things get choppy. Sat high on the airmat floor, if I feel unstable I can easily let it down. As we head through the Cove’s narrow neck a patrol boat circles back and instructs Barry we can’t carry on east; the army ranges are firing. ‘I thought you said you were going call them, Barry? You had one job to do…’ ‘But you said they hardly ever do this on a balmy, July’s day!’ And so it went on…360° selfing in sheltered Lulworth Cove.I spot some IK compadres lugging an AE Elite.A salty-eared boatman tells us the army pack up about 5pm, about 2.5 hours from now by which time the offshores may be on us as we cross the Kimmeridge Ledges mentioned in the Pesda book. As we slurp a 99 with sprinkles the odd gust blows offshore. We can’t even pack up and walk the cliff path; it’s closed too, and so is the B3070 road. Barry wants to paddle on a 5pm, but I propose we bus to Swanage rather than risk being be left high and dry. Tomorrow we’ll paddle north towards Poole – or as far as the predicted headwinds allow.So a paltry 5 miles – but the classic stretch of the Jurassic Coast.A couple of hours later we enjoy a pint and…a lavish seafood medley overlooking Swanage Bay.But there’s no campsite till August, so we pitch for free up in Durlston Country Park to the sound of beery revellers and Tuesday-night hoons doing burn-outs along the seafront. What can it be like on a Saturday night?Six am next morning, a light breeze blowing from the northwest means no condensation ;-)) The Anfibio Multimat passed the sleeping test, too.I walk a mile south to Purbeck’s corner at Durlston Head to inspect the tidal stream. Two hours before LW, it’s negligible, but further west, St Albans Head just out of Chapman’s Pool is said to be stronger. I must do that walk sometime. Above, a ferry heads from Poole to the Channel Islands.Durlston’s famous 1890 Great Globe.‘The Earth is a planet and one of God’s glorious creations.’Looking back north you just see our tents on Peveril Point, Ballard Down chalk cliffs and pinnacles stretch out beyond, and Bournemouth’s at the back.I’m amazed how Barry always manages to roll his MRS up so compactly.A modest breakfast in the Swanage sunshine.At the cafe we meet Rach and Mark setting off on the final day of a staggering 630-mile walk along the Southwest coast from Minehead in north Devon. Their picture above taken a few hours later.Meanwhile we prime our boats for the 6.3 miles past Old Harry to Poole Harbour Entrance. We may carry on to Poole itself, but a strengthening wind may nix that idea.No sailing today, Barry inches into the light morning breeze across Swanage Bay. We reversed this trip a couple of months back.Ballard cliffs in the wind’s lee at glassy low water.Ideal paddling conditions – a chance to explore tidal caves I’ve never noticed before.Ballard’s spike, thought by some to be a fossilised Dendrosauraus tooth.We approach the Pinnacles to the squawk of agitated seabirds.Arches ripe for threading as far as the eye can see.But this morning the tide is too low.And it means there’s a lot of this string-weed floating about. It catches in our skegs but I have a solution.Leaving Harry’s, Barry’s is a bit of a Lethargic Larry cutting across Studland Bay. Halfway across, I remove a metre-long, kilo of Swanage string-weed caught in his skeg.It’s all going nicely until 10.30am when the wind kicks up, then picks up some more. But the GPS revealed we kept plugging on at 5kph, just with a lot more effort. As Barry observed, it was a slog but good to know our packrafts can progress against this sort of wind.With brain-out jet-skiers, sailboats, motorboats, working boats and the rattling Sandbanks chain ferry, we have to time our crossing across the busy vortex of Poole Harbour Entrance. Hitting 8kph, we cross a sharp eddyline where the incoming tide clashed with still-draining Poole Harbour. Barry hops out quick before the chain ferry trundles back. (Turns out it’s actually free for northbound pedestrians).From Swanage to Sandbanks, followed by a 90-minute walk to Poole station for the train home.
The winds here have been belting out at up to 40mph for days, but I grabbed a quickie during a lull the other afternoon to try out some final mods.
Foam backrest: much better
My centrally seated TXL is like a small TPU kayak – the missing link, some say – so it needs a backrest that works. I was never won-over by the Anfibio inflatable backrest on the Revo or my boat; it manages to be both mushy and wobbly. But once on the water it was soon clear that, combined with my Lomo holdall wrapped into a footrest bundle (below left), the foam SoT backrest felt much better. The broader, firm pad spreads across the back supportively and is held up with straps, not thin elastic. Plus being able to press feet side-by-side against a flat, firmish surface, not jam feet into the bow, is also much more comfortable. It felt just like my old Seawave!
Feet side by side – betterUse a bag or get a blow-up footrest
I was giving the Multimat air floor one more try. It must do some good and I admit it may have helped replicate the IK feel. And unlike initial impressions, the half-inflated seat base is actually pretty stable sat on the stiff floor, not wobbly as I originally thought. Plus the pad protects the floor from impacts below, and heel scuffing inside.
I did feel again that the TXL skates across the water a little, bobbing on the stiff air floor. This flat-floor effect makes sense on a shortish 3:1 ratio boat and was one reason I thought a front skeg might be helpful (it wasn’t with the stock rear skeg). The air floor lifts the boat a bit higher in the water and the sliding left to right is more from wind and waves than in reaction to paddling strokes (like normal packraft bow yawing). But until conditions get too rough I don’t think it really hampers paddling progress that much. It’s a packraft after all, not a jet ski!
While I had the floor in, I tried the 15-cm thick seatbase fully inflated and sure enough, like Anfibio say, it’s too high and may get unstable on anything other than flatwater, even with my repositioned knee straps for added support (left). That’s why they offer the 5cm foam block (it’s on ebay, fyi). A thinner inflatable seatbase would be less agonising but it seems, like on an IK, the half-inflated stock seatbase actually works fine.
Only one skeg needed
The other test was a skeg repositioned on the floor for full submergence – this is only needed for sailing; the TXL tracks well enough with the semi-submerged stock skeg position and goes OK without one. Had I not seen the selfies (left) and not tried sailing, I’d probably not have noticed.
The afternoon’s glassy calm had turned already. I pushed into the breeze out towards a low-tide skerry just off Tanera Mor, then heeled round for the mile back to Badentarbet beach and flipped out the WindPaddle. I left the stock skeg in place which was cheating a bit, but I’m pleased to say my earlier problems with weathecocking (stern blowing round, side to the wind) have been solved. No surprise a fully submerged skeg makes the TXL sail as well as my Rebel 2K and MRS Nomad. This was an important thing to pin down as I want to be sure my bloaty, IK-replacing Sigma TXL has something up its sleeve when the wind allows because, like any inflatable, in the other direction it will struggle as headwinds reach 15-20mph. Sailing still needs constant micro-adjustment, but it’s great to feel a gust tugging at the handlines as the Sigma ploughs a trough through the surf like a water buffalo wading across a mudhole. The boat was definitely hitting 7kph or more at times.
I was also trying an idea I didn’t get round to testing on my narrower-bowed Seawave before I sold it: a WindPaddle transverse bowsprit™. Those cunning Chinese will be copying it on ebay any day now.
Transverse bowsprit™ Ask for it by nameHang on, was I not the first transverse genius?
TXL vs MRS Nomad spacing
A WindPaddle disc sail starts bobbing madly left to right when winds get much over 10-15mph – it can’t unload the air fast enough. This is a side effect of mast-less downwind sails, but I figured if the bow sail attachments were further apart and more taught, the bobbing might be constrained. You want a downwind sail at the very front of a short boat, but on the TXL thr frontmost mounts are quite close together (compare to a Nomad, above left). My ‘transverse bowsprit‘ is a stick which extends the sail mounts out to the sides, like ship rigging. I used a foot-long bamboo stick with some Rovaflex loops on the ends and for the weight and minimal faff, I like to think it worked. A bit longer would be better; I have a 50cm rod lined up for next time. A few days after posting my sailing vid, YouTube thoughtfully directed me to a ten-year old video where a bloke with a hip-wide surf ski had the same idea (above right). Only he managed to zip along at a breathtaking 15kph in a 40kph breeze!
Heading towards shore, again, I aired-down the Multimat but again, can’t say performance deteriorated noticeably. After all, the MRS Nomad manages fine. The stiffening breeze rushed me towards the rarely exposed sands of Badentarbet beach and a short walk home.
So. Good to know the TXL is now largely sorted. Weather-wise, it’s been a wash-out in the far northwest this year, but there’s still enough summer left in the heatstruck south to do some trips.
As the calendar flipped into June the crap May weather – worst for decades locals say – had finally broken, and northwestern Scotland sits under a High with cool, light winds and blue skies. After weeks of the opposite, it can all look a bit miraculous. The other day we climbed Ben Hope, Britain’s most northerly 3000-footer. It’s a short, steep climb, and coming back down I was sure pleased to lean on my packstaff (right).
Ben Hope and Britain’s north shore.
Back home, paddling the southern edge of Enard Bay in an arc from Garvie Bay around to Achnahaird beach (left) was another easily realised sea packrafting outing. It’s also our favourite local half-day walk and with today’s strengthening northerly breeze, I ought to be able to sail down into Achnahaird, wade up the stream to the twin freshwater lochs, and carry on sailing nearly all the way back to Badentarbet. All up that would be about 18 kms of paddling and walking.
IK portage to Garvie beach
It’s a muddy kilometre’s walk from the road bridge down to Garvie beach which, unlike popular Achnahaird, is usually deserted. I did carry my old Grabner IK down on my head one time for a paddle to Lochinver, but a packraft in the pack is so much easier. This car-free and approach/portaging ease was part of the rationale in putting all my eggs in the TXL basket and flogging the Seawave.
Even before I reached the shore it was clearly a bit windier than the predicted 6mph, but as long as white capped waves held off (the easily spotted warning sign for inflatables) it should be OK. The chilly northerly coming off the sea was steady; less gusty (or so the forecasts suggested) so I was glad I grabbed the dry-suit last minute. As you can see from the Google image above, the rough shoreline and reefs can kick up some breakers, but if it all got a bit much I knew plenty of take-outs to join the Mrs who was doing the walk and taking photos from above.
Garvie Bay with Suilven, Cul Mor and Stac Polly; mountains of the Assynt.
Skeg effectiveness Anfibios mount the skeg sloping down on the hull’s short stern. Selfies I’ve taken on previous TXL paddles show the skeg halfway out of the water, unless the boat is very heavily loaded. The air floor lifts the boat higher still. This was not an issue in my rear-weighted Rebel 2K single seater where I pushed the back end down. On the level-trimmed and more buoyant TXL, the skeg is ill positioned or too small.
Stock skeg back to frontMove skeg to the floor?
Fitting the skeg backwards puts more in the water, but sticking another mounting patch at the back of floor sheet like an IK (above right) is fully effective. People ask: would the lack of inflated skeg support be that bad without the firm backing of the air-floor or a rear paddler’s seat? No; and the long, low stock Anfibio skeg is just the right shape.
The original MRS Nomad used a iSUP-style slot mount and, with a longer stern, means it’s nearer horizontal and fully submerged.Similar Gumotex skeg on TXL
Mounting another skeg patch on the floor is a bit time consuming is what I ended up trying so I can keep the stock skeg. Today I’m trying a spare Gumotex skeg (right) whose slip-in mount system the Anfibio skeg copies, but which has a deeper profile putting more plastic in the water. It’s only less than half a hand’s worth, but is worth a go before fabricating a skeg extension or repositioning it.
Today I’m also trying my longer, smaller-bladed, 230-mm Camaro sea-kayaking paddle more suited to steady cruising into the wind than the over-sized, white-water Corryvreckan I’ve been using so far. Initially I can feel the paddle’s extra weight, but that’s soon forgotten which suggests the slimmer blades are just right. Progress is a bit sluggish into the northerly, but I’m getting the feeling it’s always like this with the bloaty TXL until the arms warm up.
I wonder if coming round the point and turning west into Camas a Bhothain (‘bothy bay’) may get a bit lively, but the TXL takes it all in it’s stride. It’s easy to spot where waves break over reefs and, sat low on the broad, 15-cm-thick seatbase, stability is never an issue and for a packraft, the TXL tracks well across the side wind and waves, perhaps helped by the Gumboat skeg and my masterful technique.
It’s only 4km beach to beach and soon I’m threading through the western Rubha Beag skerries and turning south with the wind for Achnahaird.
Out here in the open the waves are bigger with the odd white cap rolling past, but incredibly the boat feels fine. In a normal solo packraft I suspect I’d be a bit freaked out. The bigger boat makes you feel less vulnerable and the high sides keep the splash out and don’t seem that affected by ~10mph side winds (something I discovered on my first sea outing in Dorset).
I paddled out into Achnahaird Bay (or so I thought) to get a straight run for the beach, then flipped out the WindPaddle. Only things don’t go so well. Just like the other day when I blamed the front skeg, the TXL is weathercocking (back coming round, below). This time I blamed a too shallow skeg lifting out on wave crests at which point the wind pushes the untethered stern around – the boat pivoting around the sail’s ‘mast’ on the bow. I’ve had this before sailing a IK on Ningaloo Reef in northwest Australia (tall-sided Ik and too short a rudder for the winds). In the TXL my central ‘kayak’ rather than rearward ‘packraft’ seating position doesn’t help. The (loaded) Rebel 2K sailed fine in similar conditions; so did my unloaded Nomad S1 one time, as well as Barry’s loaded Nomad last year in Knoydart. With its skeg on, the MRS Nomad sailed well, with or without a load. Along with its pointy ends, I put that down to its fully submerged skeg.
Meanwhile in the TXL you can see my annoying zigzagging track on the left. Hoping to slice across the bay like a blue-fin tuna, it was all a bit frustrating, but I inched in the right direction quicker than it felt and was pretty sure weight distribution and skeg depth were the culprits. And in fact I saw later the GPS was logging a steady 6kph, it just wasn’t the steady linear progress I’ve had sailing other packrafts.
Trying to pull the bow round into the wind
Once at Achnahaird I paddled as far as I could up the burn running alongside the beach, then hopped out and waded upstream – easier than carrying the boat in the wind.
Achnahaird BeachWade upriver
Near the road junction it’s a 2-minute carry over to freshwater Loch Raa where I hoped the lower waves would give the skeg some traction. But it was the same zigzagging progress. Waves combined with a shallow skeg were not causing the weathercocking (as they had in the Bay). So the problem had to be weight distribution. I remembered a canoeing adage: “sit up front into a headwind; sit at the back downwind“. You are the flagpole from which the boat should trail downwind. After a short portage over into Loch Vatachan, I sat right at the back and progress did seem a bit straighter, as the GPS tracklogs below show. I was no faster: 6kph downwind and 5ph on the ‘off-wind’ zags, but there was less zigzagging.
Left: sailing sat centrally. Right: sat at the back. With a bigger skeg I’m hoping for a straight line.
By the time I reached the south end of Loch Vatachan to pack up, the wind was fairly brisk (left). Packraft sailing should be better than this but moving to the back of the boat to enable reliable tracking under sail is not so practical. The answer must be a bigger or repositioned skeg.
A couple of days later we went for a short paddle in a reasonable sailing wind. The stock skeg was on back to front (right) and with the Mrs’ added ballast I hoped it might bite under sail. Unfortunately it was the same story of the stern coming round even if the speeds were again OK. On a beach we went for a wander and found a nice bit of broken plastic fish crate. We’re gonna need a bigger skeg.
During the stop I took the TXL out for a spin sat in the back. Of course the bow was up in the air and yawing like a giraffe, but it was quite a revelation to have a spacious boat extending out in front of me like a kayak. My front seatbase made a spacious footrest and I could lean on the back like a normal sized packraft. Sat in the back, as a way of touring or bikerafting, a bike over the bow and baggage in the front would correct the trim a little. And with the 200 litres of dry storage capacity inside the TubeBags, you could probably move house with the TXL.
We paddled the last mile to Badentarbet with me in the back. Again this felt much more comfortable for me – it must be the ability to lean on the stern. Meanwhile the Mrs said she felt no more cramped than the back. Yes the trim was still off (left), but so it always was on my 2K and I got around in that with no problems. That’s the great thing with the TXL: there are all sorts of ways of using it.
Where used Loch Hourn, off Knoydart, Scotland (on my Anfibio 2K, and alongside an MRS Nomad S1).
Barry tries his Anfibio AirSail as a brolly
Rolls up compact (unlike framed versions) Big surface area Unexpectedly stable, controllable and steerable As long as you’re not using a deck, it can be temporarily pulled down and tucked under the knees when not wanted A 3.5-m long Nomad S1 can move at up to 5mph in strong gusts Uses the same valve and pump as the packraft Doubles as a tent footprint or mini-tarp or even a brolly
Window is too high (on a fat-bowed packraft) On a regular sized packraft, sailing might be slower than you think About 20% more expensive than Anfibio’s same-diameter PackSail Punctures or twisted bladder more likely than a broken batten?
The AirSail was supplied free by Anfibio for testing and review.
What They Say The first packraft sail of its kind! The light, inflatable AirSail gets your packraft going and lets you experience speed even on calm waters. The sail creates completely new possibilities to be on tour with the Packraft. Only 466g and minimal packing size.
Review On a multi-day packrafting trip or where you’re not returning the same way into the wind, sailing downwind is a smart means of conserving energy while enjoying a look around. At any other time, it’s just plain fun. Until now, the only options for packrafts were flexible, spring-out WindPaddle disc sails and their many inferior knock-offs. I’ve made my own and tried both, and currently own a WP Adventure 2 which has been OK on the Seawave IK and my old MRS Nomad, and even better on the Rebel 2K.
The Anfibio AirSail differs by using an inflatable bladder ring inside a fabric rim casing which you inflate via a Boston valve with the same 10-euro mini hand pump you use to top up the boat. The sail’s outer diameter is 137cm, so the sail is close to 130cm, as stated. Surprisingly, it seems to be possible to achieve as effective levels of stiffness to a flexible batten disc sail – a key to consistent performance – while an AirSail packs down to the size of a sleeping pad. My WindPaddle folds down to a flat, 40-cm disc which some might find more awkward to pack on the trail, though I can’t say I did.
Alone, out on the water in windy conditions it would be tricky to deploy the AirSail. Assuming a skeg is fitted and the sail’s already clipped to the bow via a couple of mini-karabiners, you need to reach forward to unstrap the sail (hard in my 2K with a deck zipped up), unfurl to unkink it, plug in your mini pump and give it two dozen jabs to fully inflate – all without being blown around or losing your paddle. Were I doing this, I’d add a short ‘haul-line’ to the base of the sail so I could pull it back into arm’s reach. I chose to do all this by the shore in the lee of a headland. I started with my electric Flex Pump but for some reason it didn’t do much, considering the small volume. It was the same next time, so in future I’d go straight to mini hand pump which needs around 25 pumps.
From my experiences with the WindPaddle on kayak and packraft, I was a bit nervous the even bigger AirSail might be a handful. I needn’t have worried. Funnelled down the steep-sided Loch Hourn, winds gusted to 15mph, but the Rebel 2K with the AirSail was easy to manage in a way the WindPaddle 2 never has been so far on other boats. And this was with an under-inflated air ring. There was no violent see-sawing from side to side, little need for constant correction and, considering I was out in the middle of a windy sea loch, I felt safe and in control. My paddle was leashed to the mooring line but also slipped securely under and out of the way underneath the DeckPack.
Use hand (safer in strong winds)Clip to pfd…..or use your head in calm winds
This plain sailing was partly because the 2K could not break into a gallop. I doubt I was going much faster than paddling, but it sure was effortless and relaxing. Had there been a signal I could have easily updated my profile on Insta or checked the forecast. The 4km which had taken me an increasingly slower 80 minutes, was covered downwind in an effortless 60 minutes I also think the low centre of gravity of the loaded 2K helped it sit on the water and – crucially – the lack of slack between the sail and boat fittings kept the under-inflated sail from swaying. I must try this taught rigging on the kayak next time; that could have been my problem all along.
With the line clipped to a karabiner on my pfd or behind my head, most of the time I was sailing hands free which made filming easy. The line was just the right length, too. Only tiny tweaks were needed to keep the boat on line, due to the back getting blown round. This was most probably down to the small skeg, but was all much less frantic than my recent sail with the WP on the Seawave. I suppose with free hands, the paddle could have been used as rudder to maintain a heading, but I didn’t think to try that as I was going vaguely in the right direction. Something to try next time. One problem with the AirSail: because the bow on a 2K is high compared to a kayak, the window is too high to see what’s ahead; it’s the lower third which needs a clear PVC pane. Most of the time it doesn’t matter; you can lower the sail or look around. In fact, it would be great if the whole thing was made of clear film, but weight, rolled volume or strength may not add up.
Holding on for dear life, and AirSail on Nomad S1 bursting at the seams in 25-mph gusts
With the line out of your hands it’s easy to try and add a bit of speed by paddling as well, but at best this might add a tiny bit of speed and will help keep you warm. You do notice that not paddling can chill you. Once you’ve had a good look around, after being used to having to paddle every hard-won metre, sailing slowly might even be said to be a little boring unless the winds are strong,. But on a long day on a multi-day tour, you’ll welcome the break when you get a chance, as we did on Knoydart.
As you can see, a couple of weeks later I travelled with a mate in an MRS Nomad S1 using the same Anfibio AirSail, with me WindPaddling in my 2K. The longer Nomad is a bit faster than my 2K, and with the AirSail was quite a lot faster, maybe 15%, especially in strong winds. That meant that the Nomad had to stop to wait for me to catch up, which also proved that the AirSail could be pulled back and tucked out of the way under the knees. The added space up front on the Nomad makes this easier than in a regular packraft, but requires not using a deck, unless some sort of cross-strap arrangement is set up to hold the sail down.
AirSail; another thing to inflatePaddle-sailing helps you keep warm
Longer MRS Nomad S1 sailed quicker than my 2K
Sailing in squalls of up to 25mph took quite a lot of concentration but never felt unsafe. The Nomad was reaching 5mph (8mph) but remained stable and controllable (as did my slower 2K with the WP sail). With both types of sail, this was sailing at its best: satisfying, safe but exciting too The problem with sailing is you don’t generate any heat. We were already wet from a long walk before we got on the water, and neither of our hiking cags were up to it. After an hour or so of hanging on in torrential squalls, and with another two hours to the end of the loch, my mate in the undecked Nomad had to go ashore to drain his boat by which time both of us were chilled. We’d both tried paddle-sailing to warm up (and me, to catch up), but were too far gone to make a difference in the conditions that day. If you plan to paddle and sail an undecked packraft in all conditions, get a dry suit and maybe a bilge pump.
Having used the AirSail and paddled alongside one, I still think I’d choose the cheaper, same weight/ø, batten-rimmed PackSail. For me the value in being able to stow or release a sail in a few seconds is not offset by the slight awkwardness of needing to stash a 40-cm disc. But it’s nice to have the choice.
In 2021 WindPaddle.com stopped trading. But Anfibio now make the very similar PackSail for just €119.
WindPaddle Adventure II Weight: 385g (+ 45g ‘reins’ with 2 mini carabiners) Folded 3 times: (takes a knack) 40 x 45cm ø Folded twice: (easier/quicker on the water) 60cm ø Open: 116cm ø
I’ve been waiting for the right kind of wind to have a proper go at WindPaddling my MRS Nomad. Sunday was not that day with SW gusts up to 25mph. Yesterday was more like it: direct from the west at 10-15 meant a chance to run down the full length of Loch Ossian with the wind erring towards the road for the walk back or if it all went wrong.
You forget that starting at the upwind end all is relatively smooth and calm, but soon the fetch kicks up and stays that way. Progress gets a bit lively so you need to be on top of things which includes stashing the paddle safely. I found tucking it across the boat under some red sidelines (left) worked well and are more often useful for manhandling the boat. Lunging after a lost paddle would be bad; so would letting go of the sail’s ‘reins’ and having the boat run over it. The sudden drag and deceleration might see the racing boat slew sideways and flip you out. And before you come up for air your packraft is skimming across the loch like a crisp packet.
I don’t know if gusts vary in direction but you also need to constantly modulate the reins left to right to keep on course. It’s said downwind sails like the WindPaddle have a narrow windspeed window which tops out around 15mph. After that, they start fluttering left to right in an effort to shed the load, as mine did a couple of times. Going out in stronger winds may be too hard to handle or very exciting. As it is, the maximum hull speed of a packraft must be less than half that and, just as a cyclist’s energy to overcome wind drag grows exponentially with speed, so to you can only push a paddle boat so far. A packraft is about as hydrodynamic as a training shoe.
With the gloomy skies I was initially a bit nervous. Controlled by the wind and without a paddle in your hands felt disconcerting; a sunny tropical locale would have fixed that I’m sure. As usual with packboat sailing, it’s never just sit back and skim along like yachts seem to do; you have to keep correcting. At nearly 3m with the skeg fitted, the MRS is longish which must help keep it on line. And as mentioned before, with the WindPaddle you can steer at least 30° off the wind. According to the GPS, 9.3kph (5.8mph) was the peak speed, though most of the time I was zipping along at about 7.5kph. It felt faster as wavelettes broke to either side and occasionally over the bow. With the big Corry paddle, at maximum paddle exertion on flatwater I can hit 6kph for a couple of seconds. So once you relax, sailing can be a fast and energy-saving way of covering distance, and the WP folded up and stashed easily under the DeckPack.
I was expecting to walk back but gave paddling a go and stuck with it, hackling along at 2kph with rests every 10 minutes. Fifteen minutes sailing downwind = a 50-minute paddle back. I still think for the price, weight, bulk and ease of fitting and use, a WindPaddle is a worthwhile packboating accessory.
As promised, I’ve invested in a Sevylor Caravelle PVC dinghy. Cost: £34 delivered complete with pump, oars, repair kit, manual in ten languages and a box which is bound to come in useful one day. The heavy-duty Super Caravelle model, as modified by Narwhal, is out of stock in the UK until next summer, although an Intex Sea Hawk is the same thing and can be ‘skinned’ of its outer hull (as in the graphic, right) in the same way to make a lighter, narrower and nippier ‘PVC packraft’ – see bottom of the page. That’s the purpose of what is being done here, in case you’re wondering.
Pre-skinned and rolled up, the Sevy was about the size and weight of a proper Alpacka packraft, but awaft with that dizzying scent of PVC which takes you back to Mallorca in the late 1960s. Fully inflated, it’s too wide to take seriously, but it stayed like that long enough to enable the outer chamber to be surgically removed with a bread knife. Unfortunately, it’s on this outer chamber that the half-decent ‘high volume’ Boston valve is fitted – all the rest (2 floor chambers and the inner hull) get poxy, beach ball-style push-in valves which, in the latter case, take a while to inflate due to the pencil-thin aperture. Perhaps the Boston can be grafted onto the inner hull; what’s the worst that can happen? I’ll find out soon enough as it also took so long to deflate the remaining hull by squishing the push-in valve I decided to cut it out there and then and slap on the Boston valve from the trashed outer hull over the hole (above left). This was the first time I used MEK solvent to clean PVC. This stuff is pretty damn potent and ‘cleans’ the PVC a bit like paint stripper removes paint! Tellingly, it’s also known as polystyrene cement and has uses for welding too, so use it sparingly on PVC pool toys or they’ll dissolve before your eyes.
The squidgey little foot pump (right) is very light, but slow, especially when trying to get enough pressure into the main chamber for the slide-marker to move down and line up with the ‘A’ on the SevyScale™ (below left). This is a pressure guide so you don’t burst your new pool toy – easily done with thin, stretchy PVC and sharp words. But by chance the Sevy valve plug fits neatly onto the end of my K-Pump which is much quicker at inflating. The Alpacka air bag sort of screws into the Boston valve too, but you need a K-Pump to get max pressure.
Testing the newly glued on Boston valve, the boat was losing air, but it didn’t look like the glued-on valve was at fault. As it happens the bath was full so a check revealed a tiny, half mil hole near one of the seams underneath. I’m fairly sure I didn’t jab the boat with the knife while skinning it, so it must have come like that or my carpet is sharper than I think. Lesson: test all chambers in your cheap pool toy before running a coach and horses through the warranty by attacking it with a knife – that’s if you can be bothered to send it back instead of dab some glue on the hole, should it also be faulty. The oars are mere fly swatters as previously noted. It’s possible they could be joined together into a packrafting paddle, but why bother; there are decent Werners and Aqua Bounds under the bed so the oars can join the scrapped outer hull at the local dump.
It has to be said, once skinned it’s 36″ (91cm) wide, 60″(152cm) long, and no more than 12″ high at the bow, so there doesn’t look to be a heap of buoyancy left over for the likes of bloated boaters like me, but the floor also holds air unlike an Alpacka so a spell on a river will reveal all. As mentioned, if it’s enough to stop me sinking, I may invest in gluing a spare sheet of tough nylon onto the base. It may add weight but will make the Caravette unstoppable; that’s unless a sharp-clawed bird lands on the deck or it gets splashed with MEK.
With half a dozen attachment points cannibalised from the outer hull and glued onto the stripped-down packboat with some Bostik 1782 (right), it now weighs 1550 grams; about half the weight of my current Alpacka Yak and about half the volume once rolled up. So compact, it could even make a flat-water towing platform for the Yak – for carrying a bike for example, as I’m not sure it would so easily fit on the bow, especially with camping gear.
River trials will follow shortly, or I may well head straight out to Rannoch Moor for an overnighter with Intex chum Jon who lives up there – see the vid above from last summer. He has also been inspired to skin his SeaHawk 1 bloat into a purposeful packslab. Might be good to take the Yak as a spare up there; if Loch Laidon freezes up round the edges the ice spikes might be too much for our pool toys.
First sunny spring day around here so we went out to try out the flip-out disc sail I made over the winter on my Llama and Steve’s Big Kahuna. Wind was forecast at about 8 mph but was gusty – a bloke in a dinghy sailboat said it was up to 15 mph. Folded and clipped on the packraft, the sail sits out of the way and can be opened and – more importantly – closed easily with a twist, as long as you have a clip of some sort to keep it closed (and that clip is attached to the sail so it does not spring off and sink to the bottom of the lake…).
Initial impressions were disappointing, I did not rip off across the reservoir like a hooked marlin out of a Roadrunner cartoon. But watching the vid back it’s clear the boat did noticably drift downwind across the reservoir with the sail aloft, often at speeds similar to paddling (about 3 mph). Problem with the sail on the Alpacka was the boat soon turned off the wind one way or the other, swinging left and right. The pointier Kahunayak was better, especially once Steve trailed his paddle like a skeg. Didn’t get to try that on the Llama as I was fiddling about with the string trying angle the sail so as to steer the boat into the wind. This worked quite well in correcting the direction as you can see in the vid, but staying in that position was a problem. Could this be due to ‘wind-spill’ off the flat disc sail which lacks dishing like a WindPaddle? Maybe. It will be interesting to try it on my ruddered Incept IK when it turns up, as well as the new-shape Alpacka which I am picking up next week. More testing to come this summer up in windier Scotland with my all-new packboating flotilla. Or just enjoy this 2014 video from Finland by JP. More here at leftbound.
Inflatable Kayaks & Packrafts 