With an imminent camping trip coming up, I thought I had better find out a) what kit I can get in my Romany Surf "Irn-Bru" and b) what paddling my Romany Surf "Irn-Bru" would be like when it is fully loaded with all my camping gear.
So with everything packed into dry bags, weighed and packed into the boat, ensuring the weight is distributed between the front and rear of the boat equally, to ensure the boat remains "balanced", I trundled "Irn-Bru" down to my local slip way. You really don't want to be putting all the heavy items in say the rear hatch and all the light items in front hatch. The kayak will not be balanced and will not be pleasant to paddle. Distribute the weight forward and aft evenly.
Setting off, I instantly noticed the boat was sitting lower in the water - so no surprises there. Especially as I had just added around 12-15kg of camping gear, food and water into the boat. Indeed the boat was also not quite as nimble. Speed wise, Irn-Bru was slower to accelerate, but once up to speed, pretty normal. I was paddling against the tide too, although it is all of about 0.4 of a knot on Gare Loch. There was a gusty wind blowing from the east which occasionally would want to push the bow around and I found a little skeg helped alot . I paddled down to the RNCYC jetty before heading back with the tide. Yep, I was very happy with the way the boat handled. I even had an Oil Tanker pass me on my return.
I've added below a pdf version of my Expedition Packing Check List below which you can download and tailor to your own needs. And my apologies, I made the list for me and as such it is obviously very male centric.
I don't necessarily take everything on the list, as it all depends on so many factors: the location of trip I am doing; the weather; the number of nights away; if there will be any shops to restock items along the route; is there space for an Expedition trolley, if using ferries, or if not Ikea bags to pack/unpack by the shoreline; or even luxury items like a comfy camping chair, a tarp (not on the list), or even a mini sub 250g drone (not on the list)!
This is why a lot of items have "Optional" against them. As I start to collect items together for packing, I simply cross out the items I am not taking. The list then makes a great final checklist to really ensure you have packed everything you <ahem> "think" you are going to need.
Packing items into lots of small dry bags is far better than using large dry bags. Smaller dry bags can fit into lots of nooks and crannies really easily, whereas large bags end up wasting valuable space. I highly recommend Lomo Ultra Lightweight Dry bags. These are excellent and like much of Lomo's excellent equipment, they are reasonably priced too!
I just need to repeat this little exercise for the Rockpool Taran "Disco Boy". But then I already know there is a huge amount of room in the Taran...
Fab!
2.9 nm 58 minutes
GPS track
