Tower Hamlets Canoe Club

hi,

new to the forum and kayaking in general, i'm looking to purchase my first kayak and want to get an inflatable for the ease of storage and i plan to take it round the coast as i go to cornwall a lot and don't really want to carry a huge kayak across fields to get to the shore.

i've been looking at the sevylor tahiti k79 and kcc335 collardo but looking at ebay there are many that are cheaper but not sure on the quality, as i plan to do some coatal kayaking it will mean running the kayak up onto shore and sand/peebles possibly rock and just wondered if anyone has experience with inflatables and how tough they are ? (forgot to mention it needs to be a 2 man kayak/canoe.

thanks for your help

tim

Hi Tim,

I don’t’ know anything about inflatable kayaks but my guess would be that it’s a bit risky to do any longer exposed coastal paddling in them.

However, I’m a big fan of foldable kayaks and have owned/own expedition style Klepper and Feathercraft boats that is possible to carry shorter distances and fits easily on public transport.

I think Abdi from the club recently bought a Polish made foldable kayak for less than £1000, I haven’s heard any reports from how it is to paddle but I’m sure he can give us an update here!

HTH

Mattias

Also being new to kayaking, I may not be best qualified to comment, but I have many of the same issues and came to the conclusion, for storage reasons that inflatable/collapsible was the way to go. 

I haven't taken delivery yet, but have recently bought an Advanced Elements AF2 convertible from the US. As standard it comes with an open top and can accommodate 2 adults and a small child (another personal requirement). There are optional decks to convert it to a traditional double or single which I have purchased. Also, to add some extra rigidity, I have bought an additional aluminium "backbone".

Through one the official UK dealers, this little lot would have cost around 800 quid. I got this package for 749USDollar delivered to an address in the US - under half the UK price. This avoids the import tax and VAT which would have come to around 150 quid. Decathlon also have the basic kayak for £549 at Canada Water.

Advanced Elements website is

 http://www.advancedelements.com/

The dealer I used is:

http://www.airkayaks.com/ae1007-07.html#System%20Bundles

When I have the boat back in the UK, I  can bring it along one Tuesday night if anyone is interested in taking a look at this weird beast!

Cheers

Jim