I Built a Packraft!

I Built a Packraft!

a Carolina Paddler Article

Text and Photography by Zach Schiada

-I do a fair bit of exploring on little creeks and rivers. Sometimes this is logistically difficult where there are long stretches that need portaging on foot or bike. This is even difficult with my smaller, 35 lb. whitewater boat.

I don’t recall when it was I discovered packrafts are a thing, but ever since, I’ve wanted one. I wasn’t keen on spending $1000-1500 for one that is designed by a major brand and intended for whitewater use. Nor did I want to go the cheapest route with the no-name ones found on Amazon. After searching online marketplaces and seeing different models offered, I figured there must be some business that offers a kit to build your own to personal preferences. In comes DIY Packraft.

If one searches this site, you’ll see that the owner, Matt Pope, had a similar situation of wanting his own packraft but being unwilling to pay the extremely inflated (pun intended) prices for a name brand production raft. However, unlike me, he was more skilled and crafty and is an engineer by trade. What ensued for him was experimentation with different materials and designs, often created on 3D software, to create a reliable build.  A build repeatable by your average crafty, DIY person.

Construction is done by running a welding iron (over 200 degrees C) over TPU coated nylon to create a weld. If done well, this creates a stronger seam than the fabric itself without a weld. Over the years, Matt continued to create new designs and update old ones to make the builds easier for his customers. There are ultra-lightweight options and ones for whitewater or bike-rafting, all with extra accessories available.

I chose the Telkwa model, which is marketed as a DIY whitewater boat. The denser floor fabric covers the lower half of the inflation tube exteriors, thus protecting the thinner tube fabric, below the waterline, from rock scrapes. It also includes more rocker in the bow and stern to more easily run wavy water. There is an option for a spray skirt and deck on the raft, but I opted, based on internet research, to add bail holes to my raft instead.

Zippers to open and close the stern are sold as options for the kit if one wants to use the inflation tubes as dry storage. This also would make repairing leaks easier, but I’ll talk more about this point later. The total weight of the raft after assembly comes to about 5.5 lbs and it rolls up to fit in a standard size backpack. Total cost for the raft kit was $284. and about $50 for the tools and sealants needed to build it.

The Build

My kit arrived about three days earlier than expected. Maybe it wanted to get out of the cold Canadian weather, eh? I was excited and quickly began to build my first two smaller parts of the project: the inflation bag and the inflatable seat. The inflation bag is used to capture air and then transfer the air through a nozzle into a valve on the raft.  The bag folds up really small and makes inflating the raft quicker than using a foot pump. Building it was very easy, taking about an hour, but the seat took about 3 hours with some touch ups to my welds needed later.

The welding iron I purchased for this project was less than ideal due to its small size. It worked great for small accessory parts of the build but was very time consuming and less effective than the irons most people use for these builds.

I was excited to move onto the raft construction next. It was intimidating, but I took it one step at a time and completed about one floor tube piece per day, usually spending one to three hours. The whole process took about two-three weeks. I feel appropriate time needs to be dedicated to this project to avoid making major mistakes. You reach a point where you can “test” your welds because it’s necessary to invert the raft on itself to access the correct angle for some welds.

While doing this, I accidentally tore my floor fabric at the slit for the wraparound floor. Luckily, these boats were designed and tested in such a way that something like this does not destroy your project. The owner of the company is very quick to respond on his website forum. He has talked numerous builders off the ledge, including me.

I will not go into much detail on the build steps, but I will say is it is the sort of project that you dread doing ahead of time; then you find yourself enjoying the process. Welding the seam strips to the tubes is the hardest part and there are times where you need to get creative to match one side of the seam strip to the other side.

For example, it took me about an hour of thinking to get the pointed part of the stern to the seam strip before I even touched my iron. Matt with DIY Packraft sells a wooden form that makes this easier, but as usual this cheapskate wasn’t going to fork over the cash to purchase it and I wasn’t in “woodworking mode” to create my own. Instead, I opted to use a baked beans can, a box corner and a cereal bowl to join fabric pieces to their seams…and a lot of elbow grease. I’m confident your average skillful person can figure this out better than I did.

I was excited when I completed the build of the raft and inflated it, but just as I feared, there were several leaks. I then spent the rest of the weekend coating the seams and loose pieces with seam grip (a chemical sealant) to hopefully stop leaks. This was only partially successful, and I continued to have leaks for about a week before I had a nice raft that held air well enough for a test run.

As a word of advice, the welding iron works much better at sealing holes than seam grip, at least in the initial stages where there are obvious places where air escapes between poorly welded sections. You still want to add some sort of seam sealer after the fact. Luckily, I discovered that you could iron over the seam sealant with parchment paper to continue welding. I spent the next few days re-welding sections that were loose and adding seam grip to other leaks until I had a raft that stayed inflated for a few hours. After this, I moved on to welding attachment pieces for my back strap, thigh strips and seat.

Visually, mine was not the most professionally built raft, but this is mostly due to my impatience and lack of attention to detail. I had to seal a hole in the tube fabric I burned through with my iron. I patched this with the letters DIY. I was not as careful with the seam sealant on the inside and leaked this outside the seam strip area, resulting in dark fabric that can be seen when this is inflated. I gooped too much seam grip at the pointed stern, resulting in a less than perfect surface.

These are just a few things I did that resulted in an unprofessional appearance, but I find them acceptable since it functions properly. Others posting on the DIY website have built the same raft with more care and have great looking final products.

The build reports on the DIY Packraft website echo what I learned from this process. This isn’t a project that should be rushed, and ALL of the steps should be followed even if you think you’ve got the hang of it. Some steps require the raft to sit overnight afterwards; this shouldn’t be shortened. You should have no leaks or very minor leaks before you move to using seam grip or sealant.

Luckily, the designs are very forgiving, and Matt with DIY Packraft is responsive so even someone like me can be successful despite the worst of mistakes. It’s obvious he didn’t just create designs and leave them to builders to figure them out. He is very attentive and ready with a solution to problems his customers sometimes have. Based on his response times and activity on his website, you can tell he’s just as much invested in the final success as the builders are.

The expected time to complete my raft was about 40 hours. I estimate that I’ve put in about 50 hours due to my small welding iron and the need to fix mistakes. Additionally, I opted not to include a zipper for the stern. I didn’t have any interest in using the tubes for storage, but in retrospect, a zipper would have made touch ups to the inner parts of the build much easier, so this should be considered by anyone looking to build their own raft. I stand by my decision, but also acknowledge this made assembly more difficult than necessary.  As a result, there is less reinforcement in my stern than other boats of this model typically have. In the future, should any additional repairs be required to the inside of the raft, I’ll need to perform surgery and patch the outside due to not having purchased the zipper on the stern.

On the website, I’ve learned of several people who enjoyed building a raft so much that they come back to build more. That is not the case for me. Once is enough and I’m confident my wife would have murderous thoughts if I decided to dedicate time to a project like this again. I enjoyed the build, but not enough to do it again. I’m done building packrafts. If I decide I need another raft in the future, I will purchase a production model. Based on this experience, I gained confidence and skills that could be applied to hard boat repair and maybe even dry suit repair. The materials and tools are similar and I was forced to learn new skills to do this build.

Testing on the water

I have many places in mind where I would like to use this packraft, mainly to explore small creeks. There’s also the opportunity to revisit difficult-to-access areas I’ve already explored. Namely, Buckhorn Creek and Buckhorn Falls on the Cape Fear River, which requires a mile long hike/paddle back to your car. Due to lack of rain, I chose my usual play spot at Lockville Dam on the Deep River for testing. This has some class II wave trains and the dam itself is runnable at the right water levels.

As far as handling goes, I cannot compare this to other packrafts since I’ve never sat inside of one before. Instead, I’m comparing this to my limited experience with my hardshell whitewater boats. For modifications to the stock packraft kit, I added a kayak back strap, thigh straps and a few self-bailing holes to the floor. I kept the stock inflatable seat. Sitting on it for the first time felt like a comfortable whitewater hard boat, which was reassuring.

On the water at Lockville dam, my slow leak quickly became apparent. I learned my ten bail holes, concentrated near the seat, were not enough to drain the amount of water splashing in. The Moncure gage was at 2.5 ft, so rapids were class II, approaching class II+ in spots and the rapids were nonstop for a quarter mile. I could eddy behind rocks and do some easy surfing, but attaining was almost impossible. I tried surfing once and the lack of enough air caused my bow to fold, almost sending me for a swim.

I did three laps and on the last lap, I ripped my seat from the carabiner holding it to the attachment point added to the floor. This can be repaired, but it ended my fun for the day. Water collecting in the raft caused air bubbles in the puddle I was sitting in, helping me identify leaks in the stern where the tubes meet the floor.

You might be wondering if building a packraft is right for you. In my opinion, it depends on what your goals are and what type of personality you have. If you enjoy crafting projects (I generally don’t) and are a patient person who will read all the instructions prior to starting work, this is a great project for you. I feel the quality of the materials, the customer service and the overall DIY designs are great.

You need to be able to find solutions to occasional problems that arise during the build. Situations possibly not mentioned in the instructions. This is about the only part of my personality that matches what is needed for a project like this: the hardheadedness to persevere and not accept defeat–no matter what. If you are not overly patient, and have the money, you would be better off with a sparkly clean, newly purchased packraft from one of the established companies. No blemishes perpetually reminding you of something you messed up.

I have no regrets. It was a positive experience, but I don’t see myself building another one of these. I cannot say enough good things about the company, DIY Packraft and the owner, Matt Pope. If you’re curious, why not give it a try? At the very least you’ll have an experience, positive or negative, that will stay with you for a while.