Willowleaf: Without doubt, you are our resident authority on folding paddle craft. I have owned a dozen kayaks over the past 41 years including three Feathercraft boats: an old K-Light, a new Kurrent and, more recently a new Aironaut (currently for sale). Of these twelve boats, I would choose the Feathercraft Kurrent as my favorite among all the others. There was just something special about paddling this boat that was missing in the hardshell kayaks. But, now in my eighties, the physical demands of assembling a folder, especially a Feathercraft with all of the stooping, bending and bodily contortions involved had become too onerous. I sold the Kurrent to a woman who told me that she had no intention of ever disassembling it. The Kurrent was to be the replacement for the ancient K-Light that still resided in her garage. I bought an Aironaut just about the time that Feathercraft closed up shop. The Aironaut can be inflated and ready for the water in about ten minutes but, sorry to say, Iām just not an inflatable enthusiast.
Nice to hear from you again, JM.
Yes, I seem to have taken on the mantle of prime (or at least, most chatty) folder evangelist by default, though more and more folks are popping up here and in other networks as choices expand in what was once a dangerously diminishing industry. I think that the more people realize how freeing a lightweight boat can be, it helps persuade them past their old prejudices about all folders being 'āflimsy toysā that are not seriously seaworthy. The Traks, Feathercrafts and some of the newer Nautiraids like the Nook, put the quality and perforrmance concerns to bed, though Nautiraids are pricey, Feathercrafts are extinct and Traks are both pricey and unobtainium due to their outlandish advance payment protocol and repeated failure to make timely delivery. At this point, Pakboat is still the most affordable boat that offers availability, options, lightness and performance (unless one had the good fortune to ferret out a well-preserved FC, so thank you to you for keeping that part of the market going!)
I know what you mean about FC assembly: I call it āpretzel yogaā. I usually postpone putting the Wisper together until I have access to a picnic table on a cool and breezy day without an audience. One big reason that I sold my old house last year and moved into the one I now occupy was to make wrangling my constantly expanding fleet of boats more manageable (including the folder assembly routines). The old place was built into a steep hillside with no place for either a driveway or garage and barely having enough clear level space to set up a folder in the cramped yard. I was lucky when I could find a nearby parking place on the two lane dead end street and still had to descend a flight of 6 steps to get from sidewalk to house. This was one reason why for 20 years I stuck with folders, which I could store in the basement and lug up those steps. New place not only has an extra deep garage under the house, but an oversized contractor 2 bay garage with a workshop space on one side with a 20ā long deep workbench that any of my boats can fit on. My vast new driveway would fit about 15 parked cars and has plenty of room for my 24ā camper (a box truck that I can haul several boats inside at a time), a little utility trailer and my kayak trailer, though the latter lives inside one of the garage bays with 2 hardshell kayaks and a 16ā Feathercraft Java slumbering atop it for now. The original owner/builder of the place (i bought it from his children ā he died 6 years ago after living here with his wife for 72 years) was a contractor so the place came with a shed full of sawhorses. That has facilitated setting up the garage as a boat sanctuary and I can move any of them out into the deeply shaded end of the driveway outside the garage to work on them at waist level. As of a couple of months ago I now own as many hardshell boats as folders (6 of each, though one of the non-folders is a skin-on-frame.)
As youāve no doubt noticed, I have several Pakboats. I can report that they are quite a bit easier to assemble than Feathercrafts. I have always hated that wonky levering arrangement to expand the longerons from the cockpit, as well as having to half crawl under the deck to get the danged ribs to lock in place. Much very bad language used during those phases of assembly. Pakboat just makes any extension bars hinged to self-expand and you lock the ribs in place in broad daylight in an open hull.
Quests are quite similar in basic frame design to the FCs but the fact that the deck goes on AFTER the frame is fully assembled inside the open hull, makes the job way easier. The Puffin assembly is even easier, but that hull flexes a bit more than the Quest or any Feathercraft. My downscaled Quest 135 resembles a Kurrent in size and lightness and probably feels similar in the water ā it is close to the feel of the Wisper with similar beam and Greenland profile.
Of all the folders that are āelder friendlyā, the Puffins are probably the best of the skin on frame style. A bit beamy and the puffy seat requires some getting used to, but a nice boat for lilydipping and gentle waters. And, like the Kurrent, itās ultra light. The current Puffin can even be set up without the deck so quicker to put together and easier to get into. Theyāve added that option to the Quest models too.
I remember one of the guys at Feathercraft in NH telling me about a local woman in her 80ās for whom the shop there would set up her little Puffin solo every Spring and then dissemble and store it for her in the Fall! She could easily handle the 24 pound kayak herself as long as she kept it set up,
I used to be no fan of inflatables either, but I have been impressed so far with the sleek, partial-framed FC Java inflatable sit on top that I picked up in outstanding used condition a couple of summers ago. I added a fiberglass small solo canoe (32 pound Curtis Lady Bug) to the armada 4 years ago, also with an eye to my future mobility (I turn 74 in 3 days). That was also why I picked up the Java, in case I get decrepit enough that keyhole cockpits are too much of a challenge. i already have friends younger than me who can only manage to get in that one or the canoe when I provide a loaner on outings.
Iāve also been intrigued by the videos posted by a Swedish guy Iāve been following on Facebook who uses an Itiwit X500 V2 inflatable on his adventures along the Scandinavian coastlines and along big rivers that pass through major cities around Europe. Iād like to try one sometime.
I have a vague recollection that you had shared your experiences with the Aironaut, maybe on the defunct foldingkayaks.org? (I still miss that forum a lot). What about it have you not liked?
Willowleaf,
You asked what it is about the Aeronaut that I donāt like. The answer is: Almost nothing. The Aironaut is a unique design among inflatable kayaks. It is quick and easy to inflate, paddles almost as well as most 14 1/2 foot foot hardshell boats, assuming that one is not paddling in wind-swept waters. itās reasonably comfortable (once one modifies that wretched inflatable backrest), and most observers find it to be a handsome craft (Paddling along a Florida mangrove channel this past winter, I came upon a couple of young women paddling SOTs. One of them called out what I took to be a compliment; āawesomeā was the term she used. I replied, asking whether she was referring to me or the kayak to which she returned a look of utter incredulity).
As I mentioned, the Aironaut was acquired to be used in Florida waters during the winter where we spend a few months on the Gulf Coast. The paddling environment that I most enjoy happens to be in and among the many mangrove islands where the unwary paddler is most likely to run up upon an oyster bed which might likely prove disastrous to an inflatable or folding kayak. When I paddled my FC Kurrent in those waters I carried some good quality duct tape with me as a temporary fix were I to have the unhappy misfortune of making contact with a bed of those sharp-shelled bivalves. Iām uncertain that such a field repair could be effected on an inflatable. Thus far, though Iāve come close, Iāve not yet ātouchedā an oyster bed and will do my best to maintain that happy status. But there is a saying among Gulf Coast paddlers: āThere are paddlers who have run a boat onto an oyster bed and there are paddlers who have not yet run a boat onto an oyster bedā
And now to the point. My only real complaint with the Aironaut is itās deck, ie, I wish it didnāt have one. It does make entry and exit a bit more difficult for an old guy but the real problem is the post-paddle chore of drying and cleaning, especially cleaning, the interior of the hull. It takes what seems forever to dry in the humid Florida air even though I thoroughly rinse out the salt with a copious quantity of fresh waterā¦ And, because I refuse to use one of those dreadful ābody bagsā or sea socks as FC refers to them that are recommended for keeping water, sand, other debris out of the boat, there is always a bit of something that requires even more time and effort to extricate.
I know you to be keen on the Pakboat line of kayaks. Iām now considering replacing the Aironaut with the 12 foot Puffin. It might be just the thing for Florida waters or, for that matter, any variety of quiet water which, after more than forty years of paddling, I find the most pleasurable. I note that the weight of the Puffin is a mere 20 pounds, almost the same as the Hornbeck New Tricks 13 pack canoe that I recently acquired. It lacks that certain je ne sais quoi of the FC Kurrent that I once paddled and now regret selling but it might do quite nicely.
if I did not already have more boats than i really āneedā (12 total, but one is an unsalvageable museum piece and 2 others are still pending the sponson and seat replacements), I would be tempted by your Aironaut. I had actually thought of buying one during their brief availability from FC years ago. But Iām aware Iām guilty of hoarding at the moment and who knows how few years of mobility I still have left to use all these boats) so i will refrain.
Too bad that PB didnāt continue with their Quest 135 and convert it to a ādeck optionalā model like the current Quest 150. The shorter boat would have been more similar to your Kurrent in weight and performance and could have been paddled open like the newer Puffins.