My brief initial summary: This is an excellent raft for many purposes. Good fun. Easy to use. Cheap to buy ($152+). Good quality. Very light weight and packs very small. Expect to get a wet bum (probably the same for any raft?). Probably not suitable for high grade rapids.
- The LWD's First Time on the Water
- First Time on Water.jpg (124.91 KiB) Viewed 20480 times
Note that my rafting experience is VERY limited. Before buying this raft the only rafting I've done is:
- 14 day rafting expedition on the Franklin River using a very heavy and very tough raft designed for fishing - not a pack raft.
- Tried out an Alpacka for a while - only on flat water.
- The occasional el-cheapo inflatable that other people let me use.
- Various pool toys.
I bought this packraft to take with me on bushwalks to Tasmania's central plateau where I do a lot of my walking. There are literally thousands of lakes up there, and of course elsewhere in Tasmania. I reckon it's ideal for this kind of use and I had a lot of fun playing around with it last weekend and am looking forward to taking it with me again next weekend.
When the raft is first unpacked, it has a tapered shape, not at all like the shape it has when fully inflated. It is very quick to inflate using the supplied bag as a pump and of course it deflates almost instantly. It has separate inflate and deflate apertures with the inflate aperture having a one-way valve. I found that when inflating, the valve suddenly makes it very hard to add any more air once it is at about the right pressure. So its very easy to know when its fully inflated.
The floor is just a flat double-layer of fabric and not inflated, except for a small seat section that has to be inflated by mouth - but do this first... it's very tricky to get you mouth near it after the rest of the raft is inflated!
- Unpacked and Uninflated LWD
- Uninflated.jpg (75.54 KiB) Viewed 20480 times
Once inflated it has a very odd shape, and not quite like in the pictures on their web site. It tends to be distorted somewhat with one side bending up or down. This is a little disconcerting as it just looks wrong. However, a gentle prod on the sides bends it into the correct shape, and I later found that just sitting on it in the water will cause it to bend into its correct shape. (Sorry, I didn't get any good photos of it with the odd-shaped bends).
- Inflated LWD at Home
- Inflated.jpg (70.92 KiB) Viewed 20480 times
At just 1 kg, this raft is incredibly light and it packs up very small indeed. Much smaller than my 1 person tent. The fabric appears to be quite tough, although not as tough as an Alpacka. I bought a light weight paddle to go with it which also weights 1kg and which breaks down into 4 pieces for easy packing. So at just a little over 2 kg I have a complete raft and paddle which takes up very little packing space.
It was easy to inflate again at the camp site and then easy to carry down to the lake. However, I was genuinely concerned about it blowing away if the wind got up and I let go of it. Thankfully the wind was just a very gentle breeze all weekend.
- Carrying the LWD From the Camp Site to the Water
- Carrying.jpg (154.17 KiB) Viewed 20480 times
I found that in shallow water, it was very easy to get right into the raft by placing one leg right over it so that it was effectively in between my legs, and then I just sat down - very easy. Klymit claims that it "tracks" very well on the water. I have to agree with this. It is excellent for control. At first, I was a bit shocked at just how much it pivots on the spot when you first dig the paddle into the water, but once you get used to this, and adjust you paddling style for it, it will track very comfortably. The design is very clever so that you do not need an extra-long paddle like you do with many rafts. It achieves this by being quite narrow over most of its length. This means that you can use a break-down paddle that weighs less and doesn't stick out too much higher than your pack when walking. However, the raft is also very stable. The wide area at the back means that it has extra floatation where all your body weight is, and it is very stable. I tried rocking about a bit and never felt like it would go over.
I very much enjoyed paddling about on the lake for a while, and my wife had a go too. She's not terribly confident with this sort of thing, but she absolutely loved it.
We both found that it tended to get a bit of water in it, and of course this meant that you got a bit of a wet bum. It was only a very small amount of water, but I guess if we'd been on the lake longer, that amount would have been more. I think that some of this was from dripping off the paddles, but also the raft does have low sides so if you put a lot of weight on the sides (e.g., to adjust your sitting position) there is the potential to push the side far enough down so that water could come in over the top. I don't think this happened to me, but I think my wife might have put all her weight on one side while getting in, and I think that's where most of the water came from. Of course the low sides does have an advantage - it means that not only is it easy to get water out again (easy to lift and tip the raft), but it can only hold a small amount of water anyhow, and this reduces the problems that you can get if your raft does end up completely swamped.
As has been stated (and speculated) in at least one other topic here, this packraft is not in the same league as some other rafts. Firstly, it's sides are not much higher than its floor and secondly its fabric is not as tough, when compared to an Alpacka, eg. However, the LWD costs about a FIFTH of the price and HALF the weight too. So if you're not planning to do serious white water trips and don't want to break the bank, then the Klymit LWD makes a lot more sense than some other brands.
I would be quite comfortable to try this raft on grade 1 and grade 2 rapids. Due to its low sides, you cannot get as much 'grip' on the boat by pushing your knees outwards against the tubes, so rapids any more challenging than that could make it a bit difficult to stay in the boat.
I've not yet tried putting a pack into the raft. It could certainly fit in - and there are tie-down points for it - but you would have to sit with your legs up on the tubes beside it (which may offer good knee 'grip' I guess). The tie down points are basically holes in double layers of the fabric - two near the front, two near the back, and two a little forward of the middle (i.e., three on each side). I hope to try it with a pack next weekend, and I'll let you know how it goes then, if I do.
- Tie Down Points
- Tie Downs.png (139.38 KiB) Viewed 20480 times
So my first impressions after only a little playing around on the lake as part of a two day family bushwalk are very positive. I found it to be a lot of fun, and very capable. I now have the confidence in it to take it on some more serious walks, and would even consider taking it on low grade rapids.
(NB: I bought my LWD from amazon.com brand new for USD$152 + shipping. They would not ship directly to Australia so I had to use a freight forwarding company.)
