Multi-person Voyageur Size

[JoeD]

Hello all,

Very excited to come across this site. I’m planning on buying the Voyageur 2 person kit but first wanted to ask Matt or any others with experience a few questions about sizing.

Right now I’d like to fit me, (5’10” tall), my wife (5’4″) and our 2 year old. But this fall there’ll be another new addition to the family, which means next spring and summer it’d be nice to fit both us adults, the three year old, and the not quite 1 year old. I know Alpacka’s Forager raft is 72″ long and they say it comfortably fits two adults and a child. So the question is, how much longer should I make the Voyageur to accommodate another child? The weight penalty seems minor, especially since it’ll still be lighter than taking two boats. The tape measure on the living room floor just isn’t helping get any more specific than somewhere between 80-100″.

The second question is about handling. Is there a point that it’s just too large and unwieldy for one person to paddle when it’s just one adult and two kids? Given our lack of experience this will most certainly not be in whitewater.

Appreciate any thoughts.

Joe

Topic

[JYP]

I’m planning to build a 6′ (72″) voyageur to fit three (including a baby). Just ordered the parts last Friday. Will let you know how it turns out space-wise.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by JYP. Reason: Typo

[Matt (Admin)]

Hi Joe,

It looks like you’ll need

• 1 m of 1000D
• 2 m of 210D for the tubes
• 3 m 210D for the inflatable floor insert (you could use less, but then you’d have to patch together multiple pieces for the top and bottom, which would be difficult to make airtight)
• At least four drain valves (front and back, left and right, placed near the seat locations – more valves if you want it to drain faster). You could wait to purchase valves after you’ve had a chance to paddle the packraft and determined what number of drain holes works for you. That’s correct about my reason for recommending the valves for the floor drains (they can be closed on calm water). I’ve seen this done in one other inflatable raft, but not in any manufactured packrafts yet.

I’m not sure what you mean by elongating and widening a seat kit to make the inflatable floor – the seat kit is just pre-cut fabric and a small valve, so you wouldn’t be able to use the fabric and the valve is too small for inflating a 100 x 18 x 7 inch volume (you’ll want a Boston valve for that).

For securing the inflatable floor to the packraft, check out the Tie Downs & Attachment Points page under the How-To menu. In the insert itself, you can seal tabs of 1000D between at the perimeter where the top and bottom pieces are sealed together to make strong areas that you can punch holes through. Alternatively, you could simply put straps over the insert from one side of the floor to the other. I would probably try to secure the insert along its entire length because any areas that aren’t secured will tend to bend and float up if the packraft fills with water, which would let much more water accumulate in the boat and slow the draining process.

Cheers!

[JoeD]

Thanks Matt! Really appreciate the reply, even if you don’t have a definitive length for me. I think confirming that 1 paddler could handle a long boat is helpful. If anything it seems the longer boat will fare better on the mellow lakes and rivers we’ll use (your “Tracking, or Directional Stability” article makes that point with regard to kayaks/canoes).

Also a good point about getting up higher from the floor. I’m planning on making it self bailing, and was going to aim for a total height of 10 or more inches from the bottom of the boat (using a combination of inflatable floor and inflatable seats). Bruce in his “Voyageur 2-person first float” article talked about getting 10″ up and being comfortable paddling there. I know the Alpacka Forager has a 7″ inflatable floor.

Obviously the weight will go up as it gets longer, but activities with kids don’t tend to be lightweight. Bruce’s Voyageur was 72″ and only weighed 8 1/4 lbs, so it’s still possible to keep weight reasonable. That’s the beauty of DIY.

Now I’ll just have to figure out how to secure the floor to the raft. It will be a separate “camp-mattress”  type floor. And I’ll also have to work out where the drains will be in the floor and how many.

[Matt (Admin)]

Excellent – sounds good!

One thing to note is that the higher up the center of gravity is, the less stable the boat will be and the lower the sides will seem. It should still be really stable (because it’s so wide), but just be careful with the little ones 🙂

[Matt (Admin)]

Hi Joe, I’m sorry to say I don’t have much useful experience when it comes to taking on smaller passengers, so I can’t really say how much room they’ll need. My experience has been that you can cram a lot of people or gear into a small area fairly easily, but the amount of time it remains comfortable depends on how much room everyone has to shift around. If you’re planning on traveling long distances as a family, you’ll want more room, but if you just want to pile in and go for a little paddle now and then, you’ll be able to get away with a shorter boat. You mentioned just one person will be paddling, so maybe the most comfortable and efficient use of space would be for you and your partner to sit facing each other at opposite ends of the packraft and the two kids in between (probably with one of them nestled between the non-paddling adult’s legs and older child sitting cross-legged between the two adults’ feet). Kids have a tendency to grow though, so I’m not sure how long this arrangement would last.

Another way to get more space out of the boat might be to make thicker inflatable seats that put you up higher with your knees bent – like sitting on a canoe seat instead of a kayak seat.

I haven’t really answered your question, but hopefully I’ve given you some more ideas to help you decide what length you want to make it…

I’m not sure if there’s a limit to what length can reasonably be managed by one paddler, but even a long boat should handle alright on flat water without too much wind.

[thomas.lerchenfeld]

Also would like an answer to this!  The voyageur sounds like (and looks like from pictures) two people couldn’t sit comfortable in it as it stands.

 

I also had a question (maybe even you could answer joe).  Buying extra material to lengthen this.  If I want to lengthen it by 3 feet, would I then need 6 ft of the 210D material that’s sold, or is it wide enough that I just need 3 ft and there will be enough for both sides for the tubing?

[Matt (Admin)]

Hi Thomas – you would need  2m (~6′) of tube fabric to make the two tubes 3′ longer, plus 1 m of floor material. Cheers

[JoeD]

Hello again Matt.

I’m ready to get a kit and thought I’d ask about specific lengths of material here, in case anyone else is interested in expanding the Voyageur. I’ll explain what we’re after so you can guide us to exactly how much extra material. The plan is to make an interior length of 100 inches, or 37 inches longer than the standard 63 inches. I’ll make it self-bailing with a full length inflatable floor using the seat kit design and 210D fabric. What we’ll need:

– Voyageur kit, 1000D floor, 1 TIZIP, Extra Boston Valve instead of top-up valve, Inflation bag kit

– How much extra 1000D floor material?

– How much extra 210D material for increased tube lengths?

– How many red, two-way push valves for floor drains? (you mentioned in a separate article using two drains towards the sides and rear for spray and occasionally swamping… would you advise increasing that—maybe using four—since we’re making the raft larger?)

– I see other manufacturers just punch holes in the floor. But your idea of valves seems good. That way on a lake or super-mellow water we could just close them because virtually no water would enter the boat. Is that the idea behind recommending valves rather than punching holes?

Inflatable floor

– Seat kit for inflatable floor (I want to elongate and widen the kit to make the floor)

– Boston valve for inflation

– How much extra 210D material for the floor? I want it to cover the entire interior length, and as much of the 18inch wide width of the raft as possible, while leaving just enough room for water to drain out the self-bailing floor.

– How thick would the seat kit make the inflatable floor? I’d like 7 or 8 inches thick if possible.

– Any thoughts on securing the inflatable floor to the raft? Alpacka’s seat conversion kit is one option… two strips sealed along the sides of the raft. Those strips also get the holes/valves for drainage. Then between the strips is a sleeve that the floor slides into. To save weight I could make the side strips and sleeve only cover the middle 3-4 feet of the raft, which would still probably secure the front and back of the inflatable floor just fine. Any other thoughts appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Joe

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