Feathercraft K-Light Folder has returned

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR-tWFyfzaU



http://www.feathercraft.com/kayaks/traditional/klight/index.php



http://www.paddling.net/Reviews/showReviews.html?prod=208





I’ve read the Pnet reviews (thanks, tsunamichuck), and the above links. Anyone else have one?



And what exactly does this statement mean: “As for assembly, the K-Light has mid-connectors on the chines and gunwales instead of extension bars which require fewer assembly steps.” I know about extemtion bars from my Feathercraft Jet Stream (now sold), and frankly, I hated wrestling with them. How does the K-Light differ in this regard?



Thank you.

yep got one
the typical FC (whisper,khat,etc) has a lever system to tighten the skin…with my k-light you pull the left longeron toward the middle and slip on the right longeron-they connect within a tube that is on the right longeron and slides over the left in the middle…hard to explain but it is quick, won’t give as tight a skin as the other boats mentioned but you can have a k-light setup in 20 minutes easily, probably faster with practice. I wouldn’t worry about the skin not being as tight as the others, the K-light as done the entire Yukon and other ‘big’ paddle trips.

forgot to mention that the Folbot Edisto
is also back!!!

http://www.folbot.com/edisto.html

We’ve got one of them too. The Edisto is a brilliant concept in a kayak/decked/canoe/rec boat–how many kayaks can carry a dog or that large cooler of beer or a holding tank for minnows?

k-light connectors
I imagine they’re talking about the same kind of connectors that my 2001 K-Light has. You build the boat by assembling the end frameworks and shoving them into the ends of the skin. Then you need to connect the two frameworks in the middle of the boat somehow. Each pair of tubes that needs to be joined (butting end to end) has a larger-diameter sliding tube on one piece of the pair. The two pieces want to bow outward, forming the curve of the side. To join them, you pull them inward just a little. That aligns them end to end (so they’re a straight line, not a curve) and lets you slide the slider over the joint (so now the slider covers a few inches of each tube). When you release the two pieces and let them move outward, the curve puts friction on the slider, preventing it from sliding back onto its origin tube. It creates a nice solid joint. The technique is very quick once you get the hang of it, maddening until then. If you don’t get the two tubes exactly aligned, the slider isn’t going to slide, no matter how much you tug on it; once you get the alignment right, it just slips right over.



Ralph Diaz used to say that the K-Light could be assembled in less than 15 minutes, after a lot of practice. I never got that good – maybe 25 minutes – but I assembled it only once a month or so. Recently, after keeping my K-Light in a closet for years, I built the boat to show a prospective buyer, and it took a little over an hour, with much muttering and reading of instructions.



– Mark