Pakayak 142 Overview/Background
If you frequent my site you probably know that my fiancé and I used to have two Oru Bay ST folding Kayaks, and eventually returned them. They were a lot of fun but for our kayak camping trips in remote locations we were looking for something a bit more robust. Probably less than a week after we returned the Oru Kayaks we both purchased the Pakayak 142 thinking it would hold up better over the long run.
Unfortunately due to COVID-19 it took about 9 months to receive the Pakayak..... This was a really long wait and about a week into it we were honestly really missing our Oru Kayaks. Eventually my Pakayak showed up and about a week or two later my Fiancé's did as well.
So why is a Pakayak so cool? It's a 14 foot Kayak that comes apart into 6 pieces which nest inside each other when stored (Video of this further down the article).
This allows the Pakayak to easily be stored in an apartment and you can easily transport multiple Pakayaks without any expensive roof rack on your car. Since I drive a Jeep Wrangler with a soft top, I don't want to have a roof rack on the top 🙂
As for the official dimensions and stats, here is a picture of the tag from my Habanero colored Pakayak:
Pakayak 142 Unboxing
When my Pakayak finally did arrive, my first thought was, "This is a huge box!" but then the more I thought about it, I was asking myself, "How in the world does a 14 foot kayak fit in this thing?" The kayak was in the box nice and tight and it was a little bit of a struggle to get it out of the shipping box by myself.
The first thing I noticed once I got the Pakayak out of its shipping box was how that is a lot bigger and heavier than my Oru Kayak was but that was expected. The second thing I noticed was the awesome case that it came in! The case seems to be very high quality. I have thrown two Pakayaks into my 4 door Jeep Wrangler and the case itself has seemed to be taking the beating just fine so far. It looks like it should last a while, but I will be doing a full review of the Pakayak at a later time.
After flipping the case over though I did scratch my head looking at the tiny wheels:
They just seem not proportional to the size of the case or the weight of the kayak.
When you unzip the Pakayak case for the very first time you finally get to see the ingenious engineering of this 14 foot kayak.
Even the comfy foam seat fits perfectly into the carrying case! One nice touch is that directions for packing are also on the top of the last piece that goes into the case, so if you forget while packing up it's easy to see how the Pakayak is assembled and packed back up while on the go.
Pakayak First Assembly
After unboxing, I was super excited to get the Pakayak out of our apartment, and try assembling it for the first time! I had watched the official instruction video once our twice, but prior to this I never attempted to put it together. I figured I would try to see if I could assembly without reading any directions:
It took me about 6.5 minutes to assemble it on the first go. I got a little caught up with connecting the two large sections which is the final step. The Pakayak Video suggests to put the seat underneath to help level it off. I tried that and as you can see in the short video above, I struggled a little bit. What helped me was to do the side clips before the bottom clips.
When disassembling the Pakayak for the first time I felt like it was super easy but ended up getting caught on one step as a result of not reading the directions... There are foot pedals in the Pakayak for balance/control while paddling. When you dissemble the Pakayak you have to reset the feet to zero before packing up or the kayak pieces don't nest right. Once I figured that out it was super easy to put back in the carrying case.
Now that I have done this process three times, I can have the kayak set up and torn down in 2-3 minutes. The Pakayak is super simple to put together!
Pakayak Review: Test Paddle
The first paddle we did was a really short paddle, only one of our Pakayak’s had arrived at this time so we took turns trying mine out in Mission Bay San Diego. It's the short paddle you saw in the YouTube video above. I have also done a longer 6 mile paddle in Mission bay once our second Pakayak came in the mail along with a third trip to San Diego Bay.
When compared to the Oru Bay ST, the first thing I noticed in the water with my Pakayak 142 was how straight the boat tracks. Maybe this isn't a fair comparison since the Oru Bay ST is a full 2 feet shorter but the weight of the Pakayak 142 also seemed to provide a much smoother ride overall. I didn't feel like I was being bounced around with every small wave or pushed as much by the wind.
I don't want to go too in depth in this article since I have only used the Pakayak 142 three times at this point. I plan to write a much more in depth review after a few more trips and at least one kayak camping trip in the near future.
If you are interested in the Pakayak 142, feel free to ask me any questions and I will get back to you right away!
If you found this review helpful please consider clicking on my Pakayak affiliate link here to purchase your Pakayak. At no additional cost to you, my blog will receive a small referral bonus that will be invested back into this blog.
Pakayak Ocean Handling Update
Since this initial review we took the Pakayak on its initial Ocean test and it handled perfectly! Read the trip report and watch the video here.
🗺️ More Kayaking Adventures
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