How To Repair An Inflatable Kayak | How to Patch an Inflatable Kayak

I'm sorry buddy. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I have to do this to you. Ken Whiting with PaddleTV with another paddling tip. Now I have been paddling for 35 years and in that time I've pretty much done every type of paddling so there's not many things I haven't done when it comes to kayaks but there are a few things and I'm getting to check one of those things off the list today. I get to drill a hole in an inflatable kayak. But I'm doing it with purpose here. I'm drilling a hole in this kayak in order to show you how to repair an inflatable kayak that gets a hole because it really isn't that difficult at all to repair an inflatable kayak but it actually is something that stops a lot of people from ever getting an inflatable kayak. The fear of popping it and not being able to fix it and so it's very simple. So let me show you and let me get started. Don't take this personally whatsoever, okay? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'll fix you. I promise I'll fix you. I did it. I drilled a hole in my own kayak and now it's crying. I can hear it crying. The thing is, well, a couple things actually. When you do something for the first time there's always some unique insight to come from it. One insight is it was actually really easy to drill a hole in the kayak with a sharp little drill bit which surprised me because I have run this kind of kayak, a Sea Eagle kayak like this, into so many rocks in their lifetimes but they're incredibly durable. But when you have something clearly really sharp, a little bit of pressure, you know, it's going to pop. But it is easy to fix and so that's the good news. Now, if you do have a leak in a boat, a small puncture, and you don't know where it is, then there's an easy solution to finding that. And what you want to do is get soapy water and if you put soapy water over it'll really emphasize the leak. You'll see bubbles. So once you've found the hole and whoa, look at that. I found a hole. Surprise, surprise. You need to dry the area. You need to have completely dry area before you're going to put any kind of patch on this thing. And that's the next step is to get a patch ready to put on this thing. And what I'm going to use is the repair kit that came with this boat. And you know what? Since I just really violated this boat, it's probably a good opportunity for me to thank the sponsor very appropriately of this video. And that is Seagull and this kayak right here. This is a 385 Fast Track. This is a really cool kayak despite the fact that I just drilled a hole in it. It's got a keel on the underside of this thing that allows it to track so much better when you're paddling it than a typical flat bottom inflatable kayak. It's got a drop stitch floor which makes the floor nice and rigid. I did a full review of this kayak, the angler version, and you can check that out. I'll leave a link to that in the description box down below. But don't let the fact that I drilled a hole in this kayak lead you to believe that I don't have love for this kayak. So yeah, so patching. Next step, this is dry. Once this is dry, we're going to dry this out fully and then we're going to get a patch ready for it. And so I'm going to pull out the patch kit that came with the Seagull. Alright, so here is the patch kit that comes with, I don't know if it's all Seagulls, but most Seagull kayaks. You have, this is an extra hose for the pump. This is for taking off the valves if you need to replace the valves. This is your glue for a patch. And then you get a variety of, well, you get more than that, of patches here. Depending on what part of the boat you're patching, whether you're patching the top, the bottom side, whatever. And you also get these nifty little, these are it's really flexible, neat skin. It's like this second skin. And when you're in a pinch, you don't want to be touching and getting your oil, getting it all oily like I am. But if you just put that terade on like that, it does a remarkable job just like that of stopping the leak. I mean, that's going to stop the leak. 99.9% of the leakage, maybe even 100% of the leakage. It's just not, you don't want to rely on that forever. It's not going to last forever. Eventually the adhesion is going to come off. You really want to glue an actual patch down here to make sure that this is taken care of for the long term. But this is, these patches, and you can get big rolls. You can buy for like five bucks or something on Amazon. You can buy big rolls of this stuff. And it's great for so much more than just inflatable kayaks. Anyway, that's not what we're going to do. Great temporary solution when you're on the water, we are going to use the glue and we are going to use a patch to fix this thing up. And so our, the first thing we're going to do is we're going to cut a patch the right size for this hole. And you don't need a huge patch. That is gross overkill for that little hole. Really what I want to do is I want to make sure that I've got about a half an inch at least from the edge of the hole on all sides. And so really what I want to create here is a circle patch. That's probably the size of a quarter or maybe even a loonie if you're here in Canada. So I'm going to cut this down. What you don't want to have though is you don't want to have squared off edges because those corners, hard corners, those are the pieces that'll catch on things and ultimately will lift up and that'll be the weak point of a patch. So you pretty much always want to cut rounded edges. That's what I'm going to do. One more thing I'm going to do before I get the patch ready. I'm going to mark this sucker here. Make sure that I don't lose track of it. And I have to deflate this tube because I don't want to patch the tube with the boat inflated. I want it flat. I'm just going to draw the circle so that what I cut out looks as good as possible. Really, ideally, instead of a knife, a... I don't think this has scissors on it. Let me take a look. But scissors, good, like kitchen scissors, is really ideal. But a knife, a good sharp knife does the trick too. So there we have it, our patch. The boat is now flat. And the reason for flattening it out to letting the... or deflating the boat is you don't want to put... I mean, when the boat is inflated, the material is stretched. And so you don't want to put an unstretched piece or patch on top of stretched material because when then the boat is deflated and it's no longer stretched, this thing will... it'll have to adapt. It'll be just put strain on the whole patch and on the glue. So now we're really... this area, I cleaned it with soap and water. In an ideal world, and I would recommend this, is you want to get rid of any oils that are there. And so using a toluene or some kind of, you know, like a paint thinner or anything that cleans, anything that'll clean that area is a really good idea. It's clean, clean enough for me. And so we're going to go right to it. And what you want to do with this stuff is, it's like contact cement. You want to apply it to both sides, the patch and to the surface that you're going to be patching. And you want to let it dry. You want to apply it. And ideally they say, or the tube says in two layers, apply it once to each, let it dry, and then apply a second thin layer and let it dry almost, but not quite. And then you apply it. So that is basically what we are going to do. Complete layer. You got to get right to the edges the whole way. And it's nice and warm out here. And that's key. It's drying nice and quick because it's warm here. You feel it getting tacky already. I'm going to put right there and then I'm going to apply the same here. If I was being more precise, I would have traced the patch here. So I knew exactly what, where it needs to go, but I'm okay with there being a little bit of glue sticking out on the side. I'm just not that picky about the boat. I plan on scratching this boat pretty thoroughly anyway. I'm not a boat babier. Don't take it personally. Okay. I love you. You know, I love you. All right. It's been about a couple of minutes now and it definitely has dried out nicely. So now I am putting her on and just work it out. I mean, it doesn't need a lot of that glue. That adhesive does such a great job. As long as you let it get a little bit dried out and tacky, almost beyond tacky. It doesn't take much. It probably would hold air right now. I'm going to give it some time, a little bit of time to just cure and then blow it up and make sure that there's no air coming out. I'll do the same thing as I did before. I'll use soapy water around the whole thing. And I'll be able to tell if there's any air escaping around the edges. Now we find out if I did the trick. This is actually kind of cool. This is a, a battery powered pump that goes up to 15 PSI. So, I mean, you can pump up any inflatable with this thing and I haven't charged it. I've pumped up now four inflatables and I'm still three out of four bars. That's pretty good. Looks good. Sounds good. Now it's time for the bubble test. Oh no. Just kidding. No bubbles. She's good to go. And it really is that easy. Getting a hole, a small hole in an inflatable is not a deal breaker whatsoever. It's not the end of your boat. It can easily be patched. That being said, if you do have a leak on a seam, it's a much more difficult thing. And in many cases, you just can't fix the seam. You just can't get an air tight patch down on a seam. So seam issues can be the end of your boat, likely are the end of your boat. But if you do get a puncture anywhere else on your tubes, simple fix right like that. Well, I hope you have found this video enlightening and educational, helpful, and maybe even saved you a little bit of stress with your kayak knowing that it's not that big of a deal. If you like the video, give it a thumbs up. Subscribe to PaddleTV for lots more tips like this for all things kayaking, as well as gear reviews, including the gear review of the Seagull 385 Fast Track that I abused thoroughly today, and as well as paddling adventures around the world. Stay tuned. We've got lots more coming your way.