Pluses
Tight fit, even for a 10” x 3” x 2” dry box
• Light weight • Compact • Easy to set up and break down • Decent paddling speed
Minuses
• Not enough storage • Could use thigh braces • Needs to be set up properly be- fore starting the paddle, as on the water adjustment isn’t possible
boat and the spray skirt popped off right away. Advanced Elements does have optional thigh straps for some of their boats, but not for this model.
Performance
Most IKs don’t track (go straight) well, so we looked at this first. And the AirFusion does track well—com- parable to a hard shell kayak of similar length. KL reported “I teach a half-day class in recreational boats at a local shop. Some of these boats as so short, with beginners the paddlers follow a zig-zag course. The Air- Fusion is long enough that the begin- ners could paddle a straighter line. A 12 year old I took with me leaned his AirFusion pretty hard at one point, but the boat forgave him and he avoided a cold water swim.”
RW found that the boat turns on a dime, requiring as little as 4 strokes to turn 180 degrees. Since it is so light, it is easy to accelerate quickly, and make easy course corrections. Edging is difficult, due to a lack of good thigh bracing.
G
Ok, so it tracks and maneuvers well, but how about speed? IKs are gener- ally slow. Using a GPS, we found that the AirFusion is about as fast as you would expect from a 13’ long 25” wide hard shell kayak. Cruising speed was 3-3.5 mph and you could sprint to over 5 mph.
PD also tried rolling and recoveries with the boat. “I was able to self-re- cover with it. It should be possible to do a paddle float self-recovery, but I am not sure how well the bungee on the back deck would hold the paddle. I didn’t try that, but was success- ful multiple times doing a cowboy scramble recovery. The boat, even with a cockpit filled with water, had plenty of flotation and seemed more stable than if I was in a similar width hard shell kayak that was flooded.”
PD was not able to roll it, as he was not able to stay connected with the
PD’s weight is close to the maximum rating for the boat, and felt that when paddling the cockpit combing was a bit lower than he would like. He took the boat out into the San Francisco Bay and into a tide rip with 1-2 foot waves, and it was getting towards the limit of his comfort level for the boat. Thigh straps may have helped him feel more comfortable.
GB commented that there isn’t any significant storage area. The only access to bow and stern is through a small zipper, which would not allow access for anything large (and the front one is partially blocked by one of the frame poles). Dry bags could be slipped into the bow or stern be- fore pumping up the thwarts, but then could only be accessed by deflating the thwart. Challenge is that there is no place to carry a pump to re-inflate, so this may not be possible. Only other storage would be at your feet, behind the seat, or strapped on the deck. So this boat works fine for day trips, but would not be good for over- night (or longer) trips.
in Humboldt County Guided Tours
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707 498-1130
www.kayakzak.com
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GB also got wet in the cockpit from paddle drip, and recommends carry- ing a sponge to dry out the cockpit as you go. Or you could get the op- tional spray skirt, which does well at keeping drip off of you, but does not attach securely enough to stay on if a wave hit your deck.
Disassembly The actual disassembly goes pretty Spring 2011
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