We both love the outdoors, thus having this inflatable kayak gave us the opportunity to explore places we couldn’t explore swimming or walking. And to go further, I thought it would be a good idea to build a Sailing Kit to navigate also with the Kayak… hehehe 🙂
Kayaking is a fun way to enjoy a day at the beach or bodies of water. This particular type of kayak got our attention the first time we saw one online from Decathlon. Its called the ITIWIT 2 Inflatable Kayak. Its convenient to have the kayak inflated when in use and stored in a bag to fit a tiny storage space in the house off-season.
It is fun for us to paddle on a calmer day without gusty winds or big waves especially when out at sea. On gusty days we could paddle out, its very stable and no worries about it capsizing, but it takes a lot of muscles to get it moving in the currents.
ITIWIT kayaks comes with 3 pcs free fins or skegs or stabilizers under the kayak that keeps the kayak to move in a straight line when you paddle, unlike other cheaper option of kayaks from the supermarkets.
We paid about £250 for this 2-seater kayak that includes 2 x collapsible kayak paddles and weighs about 14-15kgs in a backpack which was not bad for the price. When it comes to value buys like this, I’m a big fan, hahaha!
Of course you can’t compare the performance to a high-pressure high-end kayak at £700-800++. Trust me, the Itiwit 2 is good enough for the price and it does the job.
To summarize, this is what you’ll need to start paddling out :
1 x ITIWIT 2 Inflatable Kayak
2 x ITIWIT Kayak Paddles (4pc collapsible for easier storage)
1 x ITIWIT Hand Pump
Durability?
We’ve paddled out at least 6 times now since we bought it a year ago. 2 of the 6 trips was in super stormy weather with 20-30 knot winds that most people would rather stay home than go to the beach lol. It survived the weather, and so did we!
Setting Up
It takes me roughly 15-20 minutes to inflate the whole set alone using a 5 litre hand-pump without Consuelo’s assistance. Could be quicker with extra help from the co-pilot! :b
Sailing The Kayak?!
Yes, you heard me right!. I get a lot of ‘you must be crazy’ look when I told someone I’m going to sail this inflatable balloon. Some laughed and hope that I come home alive. But that doesn’t stop me from trying my best with my engineering skills and make this thing sail. Inspired by the kayak sailing videos on YouTube, I wanted to make this a reality.
My aim was to actually learn how to sail, and since I’ve never had any sailing lessons before, I figured out that this was probably the best was I could learn the ropes rather than rushing out to buy a sailboat.
So I get a two-bird with one stone, kayak that works and a sailboat that packs away in a backpack. And also the idea of not having to paddle in windy conditions!
Episode 1 : First Steps
I had to figure out how to mount a mast, the ropes that holds the mast and several mounting points on this inflatable kayak.
I’ve picked a parasol base from IKEA (FISKÖ Parasol base) for £8.00 as the mast mounting and gathered some things from my storage: an old used 12-foot beach fishing rod, some used PVC pipe cuts, used ropes and some old-winter jackets for the sail. I’ll post photos of the other parts later when the kayak is out again.
The rest of the ingredients were picked from the recycle center for £5 or so such as pair of old kayak paddles (for the lee-boards, side stabilizers), a pair of aluminum crutches (for the rudder), an old carbon fishing rod (for the tiller, steering rod) and a piece of wood I found (for the rudder, steering).
Here’s a video of the first test :
As you can see, it was sailing quite good, going straight along the beach with the wind blowing from behind my back (down-wind). I did 3.5mph on the water that day in 7-9knot winds for 1.8miles distance. It was a successful day!
Episode 2 : Up next!
Up on the next episode, I’m going to rebuild the leeboards since they were quite weak, and it finally broke-off on the beach when I was landing the kayak.
More videos on how I build this inflatable kayak’s sailing kit from scratch coming soon. So subscribe to our YouTube channel and stay tuned! 😉
Episode 2: Build an Inflatable Kayak Sailing Kit (Improvements)