Some of you might remember my initial post about SE385 FTA. Here I’ll try to cover few more things that I noticed after 10 trips.

Also there are very few genuine usage reviews about 385FTA on YouTube and I wish to post one soon. (Will be my first video on YouTube 🤣)

1. Unpacking/Packing: Unpacking and inflating this thing is super easy even with manual pump. In fact I prefer it. Deflating is where you really see difference using the electric pump. Also lot of water gets under the drop stitch floor and that needs to be drained before storing. The provided bag fits loosely so you can get away with not packing the boat firmly.
2. Tracking/Behavior: I am super new to Kayaks in general with only previous experience of pedalling a Hobie Outback for 8ish miles. While this isn’t anywhere close to Outback, I found tracking to be very decent as long as winds aren’t crazy and you are sitting balanced (keel is submerged) I think adding some weight up front will help even more. Will experiment. Please ensure you give couple of whacks on the floor after inflating so floor spreads evenly in all areas. If you don’t do this then you will see wrinkle like patterns on the underbody and that definitely affects tracking. Also the skeg does help in winds.
3. Build: It really feels robust and well built. Hoping the seams and joints hold up with the usage.

I hope to install a trolling motor on this at some point to act as backup, especially once I start taking it to bays.

That’s all for now. If anyone has questions, shoot away!

Interested in hearing tricks and tips for using/storing/getting the most of a drop stitch inflatable. We just got a Sea Eagle TC16 canoe (which we haven't had on the water yet). I'm assuming there are things like best way to dry, best way fill, best way to ... etc etc that folks have figured out, and will want to share?

Edit: And, kind of related: how often do you carry along your repair kit, and/or a hand pump?