A Feathercraft Klondike on Loch Veyatie near Stac Pollaidh, Scotland. Picture courtesy of Giles Butler.
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Folding kayaks
For links to manufacturer websites see Retail Outlets, and for lots more information see Michael Edelman's site at www.foldingkayaks.org
Folding kayaks have a heavy waterproof fabric skin over a collapsible frame or skeleton.
If you intend to travel by air with your kayak or you live in a small apartment in the city, a folding kayak is magical. It is easily tough enough to survive falling off a roof rack onto concrete. Most are no more affected by sliding over sharp rocks than the typical composite kayak.
But folding kayaks have disadvantages. Good ones are very expensive and most of them are very heavy. All of them take a long time to assemble, sometimes more than an hour. The frames often include aluminum components which should really be washed in fresh water every time they are exposed to salty water or even salty air. A good "sea sock" is a very good investment, because it keeps the inside of the kayak clean and dry. See Sea Sock.
The hull may look nice and smooth out of the water but when it is afloat, water pressure makes the skin bulge in between the rigid parts of the frame so the underwater shape becomes lumpy. So, they are harder work than a rigid kayak.
The frame of a folding kayak is usually made of pieces of wood attached to each other with aluminum clips and hinges. It can be made entirely of anodized aluminum. The best material for the frame would be carbon fiber but that is too expensive for most people. Here are the frame components, sponsons, rudder, sprayskirts, paddles and various accessories for Victoria Patagonica, a double kayak constructed by Rodolfo Maurette in Argentina. Truly a superb achievement, it has a perfect wrinkle-free skin when assembled. Rodolfo describes and illustrates the building process with plenty of photos at http://www.victoriapatagonica.freeservers.com.
The hull skin of a good folding kayak is a very tough but rather expensive fabric, closely resembling the materials used to make inflatable whitewater rafts and dinghies. It is a tough nylon or polyester cloth coated on both sides with a layer of synthetic rubber or plastic.
For many years, all the good manufacturers used fabric coated with neoprene or hypalon, which are trade names for polychloroprene and chlorosulfonated polyethylene. They are heavy but very resistant to oil, salt and ultraviolet light. Both, and especially hypalon, are also very resistant to abrasion. Some of the best manufacturers now use a coating of polyurethane (urethane), the best blends of which are very durable and both lighter and tougher than neoprene or hypalon.
The deck fabric for a good folding kayak is similar but thinner. It has either a polyurethane coating or a penetrating waterproofer as with a cotton tent.
Most good folding kayaks have two inflatable tubes ("sponsons") which go from one end of the boat to the other along the gunwale, between the frame and the skin. When inflated, they help stretch the skin, eliminate wrinkles and give the kayak a smoother underwater shape.
Greenland-type folding kayaks
Some recent designs of folding kayak are light and a good shape for paddling and rolling (A, below). Some of the Feathercraft range, for example, look as good as the best rigid sea kayaks and are nearly as fast.
Old-school folding kayaks
Most folding kayaks are built to bulkier designs (B, below). They are heavier, wider and slower than a Greenland kayak, more like a Canadian canoe.
Old-school folding kayaks have made some amazing expeditions at sea, and so have the similar 50:50 paddling-sailing canoes. The Feathercraft folding kayak shown in three photos above is rugged, beautifully made, can carry a huge load and is popular with air travelers. The same is true of the Klepper Aerius double, below, which has a huge worldwide reputation, has done many major expeditions on the open sea and is still used by various commando forces. The basic Aerius has a huge open cockpit which can be closed off to leave two individual cockpits.
Accessories for the Aerius include a little mast, sail and rudder. The basic Aerius double is 17 ft long, 34 in wide, 71 lbs, quite a nice shape and very nicely made. Ordinary kayak paddles are too short for such a wide boat, but they come with extra-long paddles.
If you are used to rigid sea kayaks you will find an old-school folding kayak very slow on the water. Even without any load, very few people could roll one. Their cockpits are not designed to let the occupant(s) brace themselves in position or lean backwards during a roll.
It would take an Act of Congress (or a big wave) to make an old-school folding kayak capsize in the first place, but if a kayak of this sort is to be used on the open sea, it is essential that every cubic inch not occupied by equipment or the kayaker's legs be filled with inflatable air bags. See Additional Flotation For Your Kayak.
Anybody going to sea in a boat which could capsize and which they cannot easily right and empty should consider wearing a lifejacket rather than a PFD. In cold water, it does not take long before you lose the ability to help yourself and then become unconscious. A lifejacket can be inflated in the event of an emergency and it will then keep an unconscious person's face above the water until rescue. See Personal Buoyancy.
Build your own, and more
It is possible to build your own attractive, tough, durable folding kayak. Apart from Rodolfo Maurette's site, there is:
• Tom Yost's inspirational site at www.yostwerks.com in which he gives detailed instructions for building many different styles of folding sea kayak
• Gerald Maroske's Kayak Origami at http://home.arcor.de/gmaroske/
For everything you can think of on the subject of folding kayaks, see Faltbootbastelseiten. It looks at past and present designs; plans for sailing rigs of all degrees of sophistication; information about repairs; folding kayaks driven by paddles, oars and paddle wheels; folding kayaks powered by electric motors, petrol motors and steam engines; a powered kayak that rides on hydrofoils; folding sailing dinghies and a catamaran; origami kayaks; and an anti-jetski weapon which we plan to build shortly. Mainly in German. Grateful thanks to Rainer Kumm for bringing this to our attention.
Inflatable kayaks
There are some good inflatable kayaks. Made of the same materials as a good inflatable dinghy, they have tubes of quite large diameter which can be inflated to the same high pressure of 2.5 psi (0.17 bar) so they stay almost rigid in use.
They have several separate air chambers so that they can keep going even if punctured. They move along well if paddled by two people, but they can be a real problem on open water in winds of Force 4 and above.
Powered by two strong kayakers, this Aire Sea Tiger is a nice boat for use on the sea. Although slightly longer and wider than the Klepper Aerius described above, it is lighter (62 lbs) despite being made of an extremely rugged 1100 denier, 24 oz per square yard fabric.
You'll find links to manufacturer websites for Aire (USA), Grabner (Austria), Gumotex (Czech Republic), Innova (which is Gumotex in in the USA) and Incept (New Zealand) at Retail Outlets.
Be aware that most inflatable kayaks are just beach toys, short, fat and made of the same PVC (vinyl) as a child's paddling pool. Slightly more pretentious ones have an abrasion-resistant casing of a tougher fabric but are still too short and delicate to be much use for sea kayaking. They are not strong enough to be inflated to a pressure much greater than 0.7 pounds per square inch (0.05 bar). As a result, they are floppy and sag visibly every time a wave goes past. Many have such high sides that they will blow away in an offshore wind, despite the best efforts of the occupants.
