Saw this over on reddit and thought it was pretty cool. Using a polypropylene composite with trapped bubbles for a sheet and I assume heat melted fold lines. This goes from a 4’ tall cart to a canoe in 10 minutes.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/onakcanoes/onak-the-origami-foldable-canoe?ref=discovery
Wish they had a video of the full assembly.
Similar to Oru kayak
Meh. I fold origami canoes like that all the time to make snack containers or to put paper clips in on my desk so I get the idea. Seems like a lot of extraneous material in these and it doesn’t look very efficient in the clips and has way too many plastic struts. Conventional folding skin on frame canoes like Scansport’s PakCanoes and those made by Ally are comparably light and proven to be durable and seaworthy.
It might be worth noting that, despite getting off the ground originally via the same kind of “pre-buy” Kickstarter campaign, Oru was not able to meet full production, expand their kayak models and achieve any real market penetration until they got a half million dollar buy-in from an investor on the TV reality show “Shark Tank”. I think they appeal more to people intrigued by gadgets than people who care strongly about the quality of their paddling experience.
I wish these guys luck, but this is really not anything new and there are existing products that can fill this niche. And, unfortunately, there is also a very small market (smaller than I think there should be) for folding watercraft – some of the most established makers of them are really struggling in the past couple of years. Folbot (one of the oldest) recently closed up shop, high-end maker Feathercraft has drastically cut their model lines due to slow sales, (including models lighter than this canoe and quicker to set up) and reasonably priced Pakboat discontinued several excellent models (the XT-15 and both models of the Quest) due to lack of sales. This canoe may grab some novelty share of the market, but I have trouble seeing it being a long term hit. For one thing, like the Orus, the white cellular plastic is pretty ugly.
Just one curmudgeonly person’s opinion…
plus
it looks to have a flat bottom.