An Edmonton duo is the brains behind a new kayak that can be folded up and taken down like a tent.
Inna Morgan is the co-founder of the Justin Case Kayak, which weighs less than six pounds and can be quickly assembled and taken apart.
The idea came to Morgan as the frequent kayaker tried to fit the sport into her way of life.
“It was an alternative to buying an expensive hard-shelled kayak that I felt really didn’t fit with the rest of my lifestyle.”
Morgan said the design of kayaks currently is cumbersome so she teamed up with engineers in Montenegro to streamline the product. Over the last couple of years, the team perfected a design that saw the kayak made up of a carbon fiber frame with connectors created by 3D printers.
“Carbon fiber frames that are very thin and very durable. It’s very difficult to break them. We turned to 3D printing in order to make the connectors in the way we want them. They’re very slick,” she said.
A ripstop fabric is then pulled over the frame.
“It makes essentially a very micro-grid across the entire thing. So if you were to get a tear, the tear can only move through one square of that grid before it stops because it hits a strong thread,” said outreach coordinator Tanner Pye-Richardson.
Pye-Richardson said the kayak can be assembled in 10 minutes and can be taken apart easily and compacted into a package measuring roughly 40 inches by 5 inches.
“You could fit it in your trunk. You could fit it under [a] couch. You could fill an entire garage with these,” he said.
While there are similar designs on the market, the pair think the Justin Case Kayak is the most efficient and cost-effective design out there.
“It’s basically about storage and convenience. The typical person who has a kayak is going to transport via roof rack. Then they’ll probably keep it either on their car all the time if they’re always outdoorsy or they’ll store it in their garage. Not everyone has a garage and that was instantly a huge hurdle that we saw that we could help people overcome,” Pye-Richardson said.
The team is hoping to raise $135,000 for the first line of production, which could see the kayaks manufactured by this summer.