paddling with a camera

I have had e-mail exchange with Mike Palmer, a dealer of Fujita folding kayaks and ALLY canoes.

Marek, nice to hear from you again. Unfortunately Ally is not making the kayaks anymore. They sale numbers didn't justify the production efforts. All their production is going into the canoes, which are doing very well.

It is a pity, because I liked the design of the ALLY 560 folding kayak I had a chance to paddle three years ago. Well, I have got some historical pictures ...

Here are some pictures from a kayak assembly in my backyard and paddling on Beaver Pond and Boyd Lake near Fort Collins. I also paddled my 5 mile virtual race. It was rather a fast cruising pace than racing.

Design. Bergans is more known from folding canoes and ALLY kayaks share the same frame design with their canoes.

The ALLY 560 (18'4"x23", 49lb) is one of the fastest folding kayaks competing probably only with Feathercraft Katsalano (17'9"x22", 45lb) and Feathercraft Jetstream (19'3"x20", 45lb) but Jetstream as a seat-on-top touring surfski falls into different category.

Assembly It took me about 2 hours to assembly the kayak. This time included reading instructions, shooting pictures, one moment of confusion, and a couple of minor mistakes. As soon as you figure out the design idea the assembly is rather straightforward. I had only troubles to install the two last pieces of the frame: cockpit braces. I understand that these are modified in a current production model. I believe that I could assembly this kayak in about 40 minutes. However, the assembly of a brand new kayak may be more challenging and require more pushing and using a mallet.

My demo boat was a couple years old and, probably, didn't see much paddling but many assembly/disassembly cycles. I was paying attention to any signs of damage or wearing out to get idea about durability of this design. The skin was in excellent shape except one D-ring missing in the stern deck. Instead of D-rings I would rather prefer some loops sewn between hull and deck. The foam floor was in a rather poor shape and, obviously, suffered during some previous assemblies. During my last paddling I broke one of tension wires. I was able to replace it by a piece of cord, but they need some attention. I was concerned about double zippers along decks but they didn't show any signs of problems. Two piece cockpit coaming was getting loose in a deck sleeve each time I unzippered the deck.

Paddling. I managed to do three short paddling trips from 4 to 7 miles on Beaver Pond (calm conditions) and Boyd Lake (boat and wind waves up to 1').

ALLY 560 feels much more as a sea kayak than my Feathercraft K1 expedition and is much faster. The seat was not very comfortable for me, but this is my regular problem in any kayak. I need to make my own seat or adapt the bumfortable one which I am using in my racing kayaks.

Related posts:

• Folding Racing K1 Kayak from Birgit Fischer and Nautiraid
• Folding Kayaks in 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin
• Feathercraft Jet Stream - A Folding Surfski?

Jodi Bigelow is a competitive adventure athlete, instructor and coach. See my related post on Fitness Paddling blog.

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