foldables Hi Mack, You wrote: >What I've found so far is that Pakboats "Puffin" kayaks are the lightest, cheapest, and (claimed on it's site) the easiest to assemble since 2002. However, there's no detailed explanation of how to assemble them. I have assembled and paddle the Puffin. It is fairly easy to assemble, and a pretty nice little fun folder. But it is not really a kayak, it is a short fat canoe with a loose fitting cover that makes it look sorta like a kayak (I do not think the foam filled coaming would even take a spray skirt). The simple aluminum frame snaps together with plastic fittings fairly fast inside the open top canoe skin and you slip the deck cover over with elastic cords. The frame reminds me of aluminum lawn furniture, though a bit stronger. It was designed for inexperienced recreational day paddling. It's short length, tall stance, and wide beam make it suitable for calm inland waters, it would be difficult to handle in rough conditions IMO. And it would be difficult to make any headway over a long distance because each stroke of the paddle stears you off-coarse. Because of the high sitting position, wide beam, and large freeboard you also can not really properly paddle it with a normal double ended kayak paddle. The large inflatable sponsons also take up a lot of interior space, so it was clearly not meant for traveling long distances in open water with any kind of cargo. It is a well made little folding canoe, but I think it was not intended to be a substitute for a kayak, but rather for someone to pull out of their camper and have a nice afternoon floating around on a lake close to shore. You might consider the Chinese made Atlatle. It weighs about 30 pounds, also assembles easily and is reasonably priced (in the same price range as the Puffin). It is much better suited for more traditional sea kayak paddling (though it is somewhat limited in carrying capacity since it is only about 13 feet long). There is a distributor in Seattle in the University District, and you can get them via mail order from the web from another US distributor at http://www.atlatl-kayaks.com/ Peter C *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Sep 11 2003 - 19:42:27 PDT
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