newbie question

Never used one, in fact in 20 years of Kayaking I've never even seen one on the water......... Maybe this tells us something....... But is it something about inflateable canoes or about conservative Northern Ireland people..........?

So in other words....unless I have the space to store a standard canoe/kayak, I'm not worthy ?

That seems pretty harsh.

Try posting this to news:rec.boats.paddle as I think inflatables are more common in the US and that group will give a much wider audience.

Don't be surprised if you get similarly unhelpful replies though - they're a strange lot

Good luck

Carol

Come off it! (Or, 'Chill,' in the current idiom.)

He said he had never seen one. Big deal. I can't recall seeing one very far from a beach or dock.

In wondering if that said anything about the vessels themselves (like whether they are safe or serviceable?) he also made a joke at his own expense. And he said nothing about you in any way.

Relax and you will enjoy your paddling much more!

There may be take apart sit on tops. If you're only going out in fairly warm weather, that'd be a good deal. They've looked as if they're easy to paddle when I've seen them on the river.

This is a good Idea, I had a glass fibre pool boat that was only about 5 feet long. It was fantastic for playing in stoppers & white water generally, but paddling over long distances in a straight line would be a nightmare.

As for the folding canoes there are plans all over the web for self biuld as well as purchace. But then if space is a problem, you probably wont have room to build either. There is a links page with loads of these things called the mother of all maritime links, can't remember the url, but try a searce (I used google)

My new condo is the size of a walk-in closet. I have zero storage.

I'm only going to be paddling in an inlet - no rapids, no whitewater...just across occassionally choppy water. It does get windy though, and as another poster pointed out, I should probably consider this. I just thought it would be nice to have something I could put in the water in the early morning or early evening and paddle around a bit. That's all.

Interesting. I thought I had an obscure sense of humour!

I think that the point made, or at least indicated, by many folks in as many ways, has been that if you are serious you should probably look at a collapsable/foldable or whatever, rather than an inflatable.

When you say a small condo, do you mean your unit or the building? Some condos have bike storage rooms that might accommodate a canoe/yak. Or you could talk to the super/manager and find out if they have a storage room you could use. Just make sure your boat isn't too expensive and lock it up. If you really don't have room, you could store it in a friends garage or a rented lock up. You can rig up a home made pulley system to hoist most boats out of the way.

Folding boats (Folbot, Klepper, etc.) are good but expensive.

I've been in an inflatable once but didn't feel too safe in it (blown about by the wind).

Hope this helps.