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is there a way to tell between the two batches? I got a kit six months ago and haven’t put it together yet. Should I just to put it together with Pex out of an abundance of caution?

Thanks for addressing this issue, Matt. I found that with 1/2″ PEX-b for combing, the spray skirt stays fairly well attached to the spray deck through class III. However, it’s still far from dry in that boat. As my body rotates while paddling through whitewater, the waist shock-cord tends to drop down my waist until it sits quite low. Water then pools on the skirt and slowly drips through my shirt and into the cockpit. After running my local 2 mile stretch of whitewater, I had 50-70lbs of water in the boat. So while it won’t negate the need for a drysuit in cold conditions, it does at least prevent having to get out & dump the boat after every rapid. I think my next adjustment will be adding shoulder straps to the skirt to keep it higher on my waist. After that, I may look at aquasealing the holes along the deck where the tube-fabric-joining strips prevent a seal, as you suggest in the tutorial.

Great Video. I’m just about to start assembling my second packraft and I know my sealing technique needs improvements. After using he first packraft a few times I found the edge of the seams would develop little bubbles of delamination between the TPU layers which I spot hit with the iron. I think not having to move the iron back and forth along the seams during the sealing will help me get a better initial weld.