Inflatable Kayak Blog

The 2008 Outdoor Retailer Show began with the ‘Open Air Demo’, two days where manufacturers allow attendees the opportunity to paddle, ride and test out their products. Pineview Reservoir is about an hour away from Salt Lake City, so we decided to take the train. Utah has a really nice transportation system, originally developed to accommodate the Winter Olympics that were held here in 2002. The newest addition is the FrontRunner train. Our badges allowed us to ride free as far as Ogden, then catch a shuttle to the demo. The ride up was fun on the train, however we had a more scenic ride when we took the shuttle bus directly back to the city after the show.

By the time we arrived at the demo, the cloudy skies that began the day had changed to bright sunshine. The rest of the day was probably the hottest since we arrived and sunscreen and shady areas became a major part of the plan. The tents in the parking lot and on the beach made for a carnival like atmosphere and the water was filled with paddlers, motor boaters (farther out into the lake) and something we hadn’t seen before, people standing on surfboards while paddling them, most likely one of the newer products at the show. It was exciting to see everyone enjoying the day and the camaraderie.

Our main interest at the ‘open air demo’ was the Sea Eagle and Pakboat tents. Coincidentally they were located next to each other. We talked with John and Cecil Hoge from Sea Eagle as we had the opportunity to paddle the 340x Explorer Inflatable Kayak and the catamaran style PaddleSki for the first time. Alv Elvestad, the designer of the PakBoats was there helping us to test paddle the new Puffin models with their new color scheme and the new XT touring series, available in one and two person models. We’ll get more specific on both the Sea Eagle and Pakboats in some blogs over the next few days. Way too many things to talk about in one blog!
 
We also test paddled a new folding boat that was making it’s debut at the show, the K-Pak. Looks like we may have found an addition to our product line. I’ll get more specific on that one in another blog as well.

Over the next few days and into next week, we’ll post several blogs that will have specific information about the individual products we’ve tested and seen here at the show. The indoor portion of the show begins on Friday.