A behind-the-scenes and water-level look at Alpacka Raft’s new packrafts
A deep dive into the story of the Chinook, the Zephyr and the Aleutian
Written by Cam Fenton. Photos by Cam Fenton and Brett Davis at Alpacka Raft.
A small, gray, round head broke through the surface of the water. It’s black, almond-shaped eyes fixed on me and my small blue boat rising up and down the nearly two-meter swells. Behind me, the swells curled and crashed into a maelstrom of whitecaps as the waves charged towards the beach. The harbour seal tilted its head, looking like it was about to question what I was doing out there in a boat like this.
I started crafting a response in my head. I would tell the seal that this wasn’t a normal packraft. It was a new model, designed to work more like a sea kayak than a lightweight river craft. Sure, I might be pushing the limits out here, but I was a sea kayaking guide at one point.
The seal stared at me, unmoved and unconvinced. It fixed me with one final disapproving glare before disappearing into the depths. I shrugged and looked out towards the horizon. Flumes of seawater were being whipped off the surface by the wind. Streams of white water disappeared against a rapidly darkening sky. In the distance, where the bay met the open ocean, waves crashed against distant rocks.
“Maybe that seal was onto something,” I muttered to no one.
A new generation of packraft
Dustin Partridge remembers seeing an early prototype of what would become Alpacka Raft’s new line of flatwater boats – the Zephyr, Chinook and Aleutian – more than a decade ago. It was his first packrafting trip, a multi-day paddle through Westwater Canyon, a popular stretch of the Colorado River near Moab with some of Alpacka’s staff team.
“[They] were testing this boat that was called the Anaconda,” he said. “It was this super long boat that Sheri was working on”.
The Sheri in question was Sheri Tingey, the storied founder of Alpacka Raft. A lifelong gear maker and tinkerer, she had already been working on a sea kayak-style packraft back in 2014. The Anaconda never made it to market, but Tingey kept working on the design.
“Sheri’s had all these sea kayak designs over the years,” said Partridge. “She’ll work on one, and it's not quite right, and there needs to be some tweaks, so she sets it down, and then she comes back to it, or she starts over… that's the whole process”.
But for the last decade, she hasn’t been doing it alone. An engineer by training, Partridge has worked with her since 2016. Today, he’s Alpacka Raft’s Design Engineer.
“Sheri's still around, and she still innovates,” he explained. “I'm here day to day, kind of in charge of the design process”.
But Partridge’s road to building packrafts was anything but straight. Back when he took that first packrafting trip, he owned a natural food store near Alpacka’s manufacturing facility in Mancos, Colorado. He was looking for a change, so one day he reached out to Sheri.
“I want to work here,” he told her. “She didn't understand, considering I had my own business”.
Then, she saw Partridge's resume. Not only did he have an engineering background, but like Sheri, he had a knack for designing and making his own outdoor gear.
“I made a backpack for my Continental Divide Trail hike,” Partridge said. “I had some experience [making gear], and that's what I wanted to do.”
Partridge started on the manufacturing floor, gluing floors into Alpacka rafts.
“That was the best thing for me,” he said. “I learned a lot about the manufacturing process”.
From there, he learned about the rest of the boat construction process, describing it as “going down this rabbit hole” of packraft construction. Eventually, Sheri started bringing him into the design process.
“I just took it upon myself to learn,” he said. “That segued into whenever Sheri needed some help, she'd grab me. I'd work on a project for her, and it just slowly turned into her trusting me with the product line, and teaching me how to do patterns.”
“I think she saw something in me,” he added.
That collaboration between Dustin and Sheri helped create the Valkyrie and the Mage, packrafts that are pushing the limits of what whitewater inflatables can do. And now, they’ve launched the new flatwater line-up, packrafts that move fast and track exceptionally well.
Partridge described the design process for these new boats as “kind of like throwing paint at the wall” to figure out “what works and what doesn't work.” He remembers building five different prototypes before taking one on a trip to Patagonia, a place where packrafters had been battling legendary winds on some of the region’s epic glacial lakes.
“That boat wasn't great for flat water,” he explained. “So when I got back from that trip, we went back to the drawing board”.
At that point, Sheri and Dustin had already been working on the Aleutian and had a design they liked. The design was strong, but like the Valkyrie, it was a high-end boat that, with its complex structure, wouldn’t appeal to every paddler. They wanted a more accessible design to complement it.
“We were staring at the Aleutian, and thought ‘why don’t we just get rid of the baffles and make a shorter bow and stern,’” he said.
They built another prototype, and it worked. The boat cut through the water and tracked well, even better once they added a removable plastic skeg. There was refinement, but that design would become the Zephyr and the Chinook.
A review (of sorts)
The seal was long gone by the time I spun my bow around and pointed back to shore. The wind was picking up, and the waves seemed to be coming in bigger, faster sets. The placid bay I had criss-crossed a few days earlier was turning into whitewater.
I lined up my bow with the shore and aimed for gaps between the whitecapping waves. It was rusty, but my experience and training paddling sea kayaks in rough seas slowly clicked back in. As a wave crashed behind me, I dug deep and paddled hard towards the shore. The crest of the whitecap caught under my hull, and I drove a few more strokes, matching the speed of the water. The wave grabbed me, and I started to surf, dropping my paddle to the stern to act as a rudder. The same long, narrow hull that had cut through flatwater and a headwind helped me keep the boat on track. I threw a few more paddle strokes and dropped onto the face of the wave. A smile stretched from ear to ear as the wave finally started to subside, pushing me gently onto the sandy shore.
Were rough ocean waters and coastal surfing the intended use of a Chinook? Not really (and if you’re not familiar with offshore paddling, there are some important things to learn). Would an Aleutian, with its longer hull, baffles and more sea kayak design have been a better choice? Probably, but Alpacka didn’t send me one of those to try.
Still, the Chinook performed admirably. Something that the boat would do again and again over the two months I had to test it. During that time, I paddled it on rough ocean waters and placid lakes. It tracked exceptionally well, while still delivering the kind of comfortable primary stability you would expect in a packraft. I also took it onto some Class I and II rivers, using it for a long trip down through the Heart of the Fraser River between Hope and Mission. It wasn’t as nimble as a whitewater craft navigating boils and eddies, but it still managed. And, on the flat sections of the river, I was easily able to cover ten-plus kilometres an hour with a modest paddling effort.
When I asked Dustin Partridge what he was most excited about with these new boats, he told me it was that they “push up against the way packrafts are traditionally made”. I don’t really know enough about boat construction to know what that could mean for the future of boat design, but to me it echoed my own interest in these boats. With flatwater speed and efficiency, these new packrafts open up new ways to think about how packrafts are traditionally used.
Interested in buying a packraft? Send us an email! We have packraft experts who can help you make the right purchase.
Interested in trying out one of these new boats? Mt. Waddington Outdoors and Ascent Guides are hosting a Packraft Community Weekend at the end of May. Alpacka Raft will be there with boats available for demo.
