Built for solo paddlers looking for something extremely lightweight, minimalist, and maneuverable, Josh Thrombley of Hornbeck Boats introduced the Paddling Mag team to the Ten Classic, a popular pack boat, at Canoecopia 2024.
Origins of the pack boat
Pack boats, sometimes called an Adirondack boat, function as a cross between a canoe and kayak in order to capitalize on the features of both best suited for solo, minimalist travel. In appearance a pack boat is most similar to a canoe, but it’s padded like a kayak with a long, double-bladed paddle and from a seat at the bottom of the boat.
“Pack boats have been around for hundreds of years but they really became popular in the late 1800s by a boat builder named John Henry Rushton,” Thrombley shared. “Rushton built boats for a gentleman named George Washington Sears, his pen name was Nessmuk.”
Nessmuk was an outdoor writer and conservationist who wanted to travel the Adirondacks, then known as the Northeast Wilderness, with just a small canvas pack and a small, maneuverable boat. Rushton, drawing from his experience building sailing canoes, designed a canoe specifically for Nessmuk and his goals.
“They were made out of Cedar strips and you sit on a little cedar plank, and you typically paddle with a double-bladed paddle,” said Thrombley. “He [Rushton] was about to do these boats at 13, 14,15 pounds.”
Hornbeck Boat’s modern pack boat
Fifty years ago Thrombley’s father-in-law, Peter Hornbeck, was in the Adirondack museum and saw one of Rushton’s designs. Hornbeck had been a kayaker and wondered how it would work to take one of Rushton’s designs and build something similar out of fiberglass.
He took inspiration from Rushton’s designs and arrived at the Long Pond Boat, or Hornbeck Boat’s Ten Classic. In the 1970s, Hornbeck boats swapped out fiberglass for kevlar and never looked back.
Today, the pack boat is a minimalist’s boat, lightweight and packable, designed for barebones solo wilderness travel. There are few features on the pack boat beyond the essentials.
“Anytime you’re adding features you’re adding weight,” explained Thrombley.
Ultimately in modern times the biggest pro of the pack boat might boil down to one, game-changing factor for solo paddlers: at 15 pounds, it’s easy to get on and off your car.
