1st Look at Sawtooth

Real post date 09/29/2010 in the morning

The Sawtooth arrived today.  With the Aire design being a bladdered kayak, there is a bit of bulk (size) to it.  There have been some questions on several forums as to whether Aire understates the advertised weight of 42.5 lbs with one seat.  The first thing I did was to break out the bathroom scale, and weigh it multiple times.  My bath scale says that with the skeg, and with one seat it weighs 42.8 lbs.  By the heft and feel it is lighter than my 50 lb RTM Disco(s).

I did the first assembly and inflation in my campsite, trying both the 12 volt inflator and the K-100 hand pump.  The 12 volt pump is pretty fast and efficient.  There are 2 chambers to fill, plus the floor for a total of 3 valves.  On the first fill I went with 1.5 psi on all chambers, then filled to 2.5 psi on the second round (as recommended by Aire).  The K-100 hand pump works well and easily.  If I only had the hand pump, I would want the K-200 for double the air volume per stroke, plus you can pump standing up with the longer K-200.  With the shorter K-100 you are bending over to pump.

For first assembly, it take a little more time to figure out the valves, pump attachments to the valves, and putting in the seat connection straps where desired on the kayak.  Once the seat straps are where you want them, you leave the strap attachment points in place on the kayak, just clipping/un-clipping the seat into the strap attachment points - thus speeding setup in the future.

After inflating the kayak, I made two foot braces for the Sawtooth using 1/2" PVC, a pool noodle, some rope, and plastic clips.

I deflated the kayak, and will take it to a nearby bay today for the second setup and the first paddle.

Some pics below are "clickable" to increase size.