Feb 5, 2013

Alpacka Cargo Fly

Well, Kirk went and shipped his boat back to Alpacka to have their new Cargo Fly installed.

"The Cargo Fly is an airtight, waterproof zipper system in the stern of the boat.  Opening this zipper allows access to the inside of the tubes to store your gear.  With careful planning, everything can now go inside your raft rather than strapped on the bow in a pack.

The Cargo Fly option comes as a three piece set.  The set includes the zipper in the boat and two zipper opening inflatable drybags that slide inside the boat tubes.  These drybags are long and a slightly smaller diameter than the boat tubes themselves.  After the drybags are slipped inside the tubes, they are filled with gear and clipped in place.  Once in place they are inflated.   This gives you two additional air chambers."

We are so curious to see how this works, will they bounce around, will it allow for easier rolling of the boat, will packing be easier or more difficult?

Stay tuned for the details....

In the mean time I think it's time to head to the pool and try and roll my boat. It may never happen, but at least I could get pro at getting OUT of the boat. :)

7 comments :

  1. Whoa! That seems strange. Results? It seems like that would have the same effect as reducing your tube size since you are displacing air (flotation) with a heavy mass. I will be curious to hear Kirk's reviews on this system.

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    1. Grant,
      You're exactly right, with the tubes loaded the boat does float lower. Being a kayaker I like this, it makes the boat seem heavier in a paddling sense. Not in a overall weight because I am carrying the same weight in gear, but the boat seems to have more mass and flow through things better, punches through holes better and more controllable. It does not feel as floaty/bouncy when you are paddling and more predictable on how the boat will react when encountering complex water features. But once again I have been paddling a 35lb. kayak for twenty plus years so I am use to that and with roughly twenty pounds of camping gear in the boat it makes it paddle similar to what I am use to. This being said we were on a low volume creek for the first time using the system. There will be times I will probably not use the system so that I do float higher, lets say an even lower volume creek where I want to have less draft in the water. So now I need to run it through the various other scenarios, low water, normal, bigger, flood ext., to get a real feel for how it paddles but so far I like it.
      Kirk

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    2. Thanks Kirk. I will certainly be interested in hearing more feedback as you experiment with it. It is a very unique way to stow gear.

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    3. Hi,
      with more run with the cargo fly,how is the reliability of the system?No problem with it?
      More pros than cons about cargo fly system.
      thanks
      J-F

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  2. I still really like the Cargo Fly and would not go without. Performance wise it has never failed and worked every time, Its a little harder to roll up but worth the extra bulk. although when I received my boat back from Alpacka, the zipper was not fully glued down (had to fix myself) and the internal dry bags had zippers going in two different directions making it really hard to get the one out once loaded and still not replaced by Alpacka. I recieved mine early on so hopefully they have there system down and putting out a better quality product now, regardless I would still recomend getting one very much.

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  3. Thanks for your information on the Cargo Fly. I just purchased a Yak in December. I wasn't sure about the cargo fly so I decided to wait until this fall after getting out an playing in it this year. thanks for sharing

    karen

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  4. Kirk has sold me on it too! I'll be sending my boat in soon to get it retrofitted too. Looking forward to the new packing system.

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