Looking after a packraft

A packraft is coated fabric with welded or taped seams and a small number of valves, and none of those wear out from being paddled. What ages them is being put away wet, being stored folded on the same creases for years, being left in sunlight, and being packed with grit still inside. All four are storage decisions rather than use decisions, and all four are avoidable.

The other thing worth knowing early is that a packraft is designed to be repaired in the field, which is unusual for expensive outdoor equipment. Manufacturers supply patch material and expect you to use it. A hole is a delay rather than the end of a trip, provided the repair kit is in the bag and you have opened it once before.

No product names or adhesives appear here. Fabrics differ between manufacturers and between models, the wrong adhesive on a coated fabric is worse than none, and the boat’s own manufacturer publishes what works on their material. That is the authority for anything permanent.

What ages a boat

Storage, not paddling

Worst single habit

Packing it away wet

Field repair

Expected, and works

Between waters

Check, clean, dry

1. 1

   Step 1: Rinse, and rinse properly after salt or a dirty river

   Fresh water, inside and out, with the boat inflated so the fabric is under tension and the folds are open. Salt left in seams and around valves is corrosive over time and it is invisible when it dries.

2. 2

   Step 2: Get the grit out of the inside

   Sand and grit that gets in through a self-bailing floor or an open valve will abrade the inner coating every time the boat is rolled. Turn it out and rinse until nothing comes.

3. 3

   Step 3: Dry it completely, inflated, out of direct sun

   The step everybody shortens. A boat packed damp grows mould on the inner coating, and that is one of the few kinds of damage there is no repair for. Inflated, in a garage or under cover, overnight.

4. 4

   Step 4: Dry the inside too

   Open the valves and let air move through it. Water sits in the tubes for far longer than the outside suggests, and this is what makes the difference between a boat that smells and one that does not.

5. 5

   Step 5: Check the seams and the valves while it is inflated

   Two minutes with the boat hard. Look along the seams, press round the valve bases, and note anything before it becomes a leak found halfway across a loch.

6. 6

   Step 6: Roll rather than fold, and vary where

   Repeated folding on identical creases is what eventually cracks a coating. Rolling loosely and starting the roll from a different place each time costs nothing and matters over years.

This is the part of packraft maintenance that is not about the boat. A packraft visits more separate bodies of water in a season than most craft do in their lifetime, precisely because it is carried rather than trailered, and that makes it an unusually efficient way to move invasive plants, animals and disease between catchments that have no other connection.

The national standard is check, clean, dry, and the reason it is worth doing properly rather than approximately is that the organisms concerned are mostly things you cannot see. It applies to the boat, the paddle, the buoyancy aid, the drysuit, and the footwear you walked in wearing.

• Check — Look over everything for plant fragments, mud and anything living, paying attention to the places water sits — inside a self-bailing floor, under a seat, in the folds of a drysuit, in the seams of footwear. Remove what you find and leave it at the water it came from.
• Clean — Wash everything down thoroughly, preferably at the site. Anything you rinse off away from the water should not end up in a drain that reaches a different catchment.
• Dry — Completely, and for as long as you can before the next water — which is convenient, because the boat wants that anyway. Some organisms survive damp equipment for days, and drying is the step that deals with what checking and cleaning missed.
• And especially between catchments — Two rivers a mile apart on a map may not be connected at all in the way that matters. Moving between separate catchments, and between still and running water, is where the routine earns its place.

• Store it loosely, dry, and inside — Loosely rolled or lightly inflated, somewhere dry and stable in temperature. Not compressed in its stuff sack for a whole winter, and not in a shed that swings between freezing and hot.
• Keep it out of sunlight — Ultraviolet degrades coated fabrics, and it is cumulative rather than dramatic — a boat left inflated on a lawn for weekends across a summer ages more than one that was paddled every weekend.
• Store valves open — Lets residual moisture out and takes pressure off the seals. Also removes any chance of a boat left inflated in a hot loft.
• Nothing heavy on top — Point loads on a folded boat over months are how a crease becomes a crack.
• The drysuit needs more attention than the boat — Rinse after salt, dry inside out, store hanging or loosely rolled rather than folded on the seals, and follow the manufacturer for any treatment of latex seals. Seals are the part that perishes and the part that is replaceable.
• The buoyancy aid is safety equipment with a life — Rinse, dry out of sun, check buckles and stitching, and take its age seriously — foam and fabric degrade and a very old aid is not the equipment you think it is.
• Check the repair kit at the start of each season — Tape ages, and a repair kit that has been rattling around a bag for three years is not a repair kit. Two minutes, once a year.