I’m excited to announce that a fabric shipment has arrived with two new colors, orange and green (or pumpkin and sage, if you prefer)! These will be available as tube fabric in all of the standard weight packraft kits. Nikki tells me these are her new favorite colors in the Read more…
The DIY Packraft spray decks use flexible plastic tubing to stiffen the rim that the elastic spray skirt fits over (the coaming), and several customers have said that the tubing I supplied with their kit is too flimsy to secure their spray skirts. I was kind of scratching my head Read more…
As part of my effort to continuously improve the DIY Packraft instructions, I’ve made a new, more comprehensive video about heat sealing. It’s pretty long, but it’s everything you need to know, all in one place, and my hope is that even experienced DIY Packraft builders will learn something useful Read more…
I have just received a new shipment of airtight/waterproof zippers from TIZIP, and this time I ordered some MasterSeal 10 zippers in addition to the SuperSeal zippers I have been using since 2016. Both zippers are the same size and have the same air pressure rating, but compared to the Read more…
Spring is here in the northern hemisphere and many of us are getting excited about packrafting trips we have planned for this paddling season, so now is a good time to think about paddling safety. Packrafting fatalities are very rare – in most years since record-keeping began there have been Read more…
I recently added roll-top drybag kits to the DIY Packraft shop. I designed the drybags with a diameter of about 23 cm (9″) so they will fit inside a packraft’s side tubes, and they’re fairly long, with a usable volume of about 33 litres each. Assembling one of these drybags Read more…
In response to a request from a customer, I’ve started selling pairs of wooden heat sealing forms in the DIY Packraft shop. These tools aren’t required for making a packraft, but they do make joining the tubes together a bit easier compared to draping the fabric over an overturned bowl Read more…
Recently Guy Stuart of the Bikepacker’s Foundry was asked to give a presentation about bikerafting to a paddling club – apparently the presentation was a hit, and Guy made the slideshow available on his Bikerafting Gear List page. If you’re interested in combining cycling, paddling, and camping, then it’s definitely Read more…
Recently I’ve had a few customers send me some construction tips and build reports that you might find useful. Build Report: Barbara B’s Skeena build report is one of the most detailed I’ve received, and it contains some great tips from the perspective of a first-time builder, plus some stunning Read more…
The payment processor I use (Stripe) supports several payment methods in addition to credit cards, so I recently added them as payment options on the DIY Packraft checkout page to make it easier for people who prefer not to use credit cards. Most of these options are only available in Read more…
Happy new year! 2022 was a difficult year in many ways, and I’d like to thank everyone who helped keep DIY Packraft afloat by placing pre-orders during those months when I was waiting for fabric to arrive and had nothing to sell except my promises. I managed to get all Read more…
Yes indeed – after almost an entire year, all of the DIY Packraft kits are back in stock. It will take me some time to fulfill the pre-orders, but my goal is to ship them all out before the end of the year. After all the pre-orders are fulfilled, order Read more…
Update: December 13 – the fabric is here in BC, it has cleared customs, and all the paperwork is done. Now it awaits transportation to my shop – only a few more days!! More than ten months after I ordered this batch of packraft floor fabric I am still waiting Read more…
If you’d like to save some money on a DIY Packraft and give to a worthy charity at the same time, you can bid on a $200 (CAD) DIY Packraft coupon at the annual Rotary Club online auction. At the time I write this, the bidding is up to just Read more…
After being out of stock for nearly two years, the Ultralight DIY Packraft kits are back and better than before! I’ve just received a shipment of beautiful new lightweight ripstop fabrics in red, yellow, blue, and black – I don’t know if the photos do them justice, but the colors Read more…
Luc Mehl, the well-known Alaskan adventurer and author of The Packraft Handbook and www.thingstolucat.com, is now offering an online packrafting course. Luc and I have exchanged a few emails over the years, so he’s not a total stranger to me, but I don’t receive a commission or any other benefit Read more…
Updated August 18, 2022 Finally, the first fabric shipment is here! That’s the good news. The bad news is that there isn’t enough fabric here to fulfill all of the pre-orders (or any new orders), and due to more production delays at the factory, the larger fabric shipment won’t arrive Read more…
Updated June 28, 2022 Unless you’re new to this website, you know that DIY Packraft has been suffering from the same supply chain problems that are affecting other industries, and it’s been many months since I’ve had any packraft kits stock. I was finally able to order more fabric earlier Read more…
Inspired by bikerafting, the Atlin’s wide bow creates a stable and buoyant platform for carrying large loads. For more information about the Atlin, watch the one-minute intro video below and check out the product page in the shop. People on the DIY Packraft mailing list have known about this packraft Read more…
It’s snowing outside here now and all the lakes and rivers are frozen, so editing this vlog-style video was a nice change of scenery for me. It’s footage from a solo packrafting trip I did last August in Nanika-Kidprice Provincial Park, which is one of the many huge back-country parks Read more…
This is just a quick follow-up to my previous post – I received some positive feedback about the pre-order idea, so now I’ve made it possible to pre-order (backorder) the packraft kits in the Shop. These orders will ship after the fabric arrives. I have already paid the deposit for Read more…
TL;DR: Normal order processing times are about a week, but I’m out of fabric, so packraft kits will be unavailable for several months. Sign up here to be notified when kits are in stock. Happy new year! Like many businesses around the world, DIY Packraft has been affected by the Read more…
2021 has been a good year for DIY Packraft, but the supply chain problems that have been plaguing the world have caught up with me and I’m sorry to say that the Telkwa, Ultralight, and 2-Person kits are all sold out, and now I have only enough fabric to make Read more…
Update: Shipping times are mostly back to normal. You may have seen in the news that the Canadian province of British Columbia, where DIY Packraft is located, has experienced severe flooding and that all the highways and railroads leading to the city of Vancouver have been washed away or buried. Read more…