The Inflatable Kayak With A Feature That Makes Flatwater A Breeze

There are certain things that are great about an inflatable kayak. They pack down relatively small, don’t weigh much, and are super stable. But there is also the not-so-great; notably, that they are sluggish and slap at the water rather than cut through it. These attributes, good and bad, are exactly the reason I asked Sea Eagle if I could test their new 385ft FastTrack, a 13-foot kayak that can be set up as a solo or two-person inflatable and has a unique V-shaped hull.

Review of the Sea Eagle 385ft FastTrack inflatable kayak

To see how the FastTrack stacks up against other inflatables, I decided on a local mission, a summer day trip with my dog Lego down the Sacramento River. This stretch of the Sacramento is a perfect testing ground with both flatwater and a few rapids. It’s a section I’ve paddled many times in my old inflatable, the Aquaglide Chelan, so I have a solid baseline for comparison.

Benefits of the V-hull design

There are a number of things Sea Eagle has included in this kayak that are worth talking about, but we need to start with what makes it truly unique, which is underneath it. The FastTrack 385ft has something I’ve never seen on an inflatable kayak, and that is a V-hull design. It is the reason I asked SeaEagle to send me this boat. A V-shaped floor gives a kayak good tracking and glide like you would find on a traditional hard-shell kayak.

Sea Eagle is able to do this on an inflatable kayak by building the 385 with an attached high-pressure floor similar to an inflatable paddelboard. The floor is a rugged 1000-denier PVC fabric, wrapped in additional fabric for more durability.

I noticed the boat is a little bit bigger and wider in the back, and narrower in the front. So not only does it have the V-hull, but it has more of a piercing bow on it. So, while it feels narrower up front, behind me, it is kind of fat—which is a good thing for capacity and stability.

We started the test paddle with a bit of flatwater and a nice breeze, so we could get a feel for how the FastTrack tracks.

I could tell right off the bat that the kayak splits the water. There’s no noise. It feels like it cuts the water as opposed to just pushing over the top of it as inflatables tend to do. That’s something I don’t generally love about inflatables, whether it be SUPs or kayaks. Anytime there’s choppy water, the boards or the boats are just slapping. Instead, the FastTrack feels like it moves through the water.

With the V-bottom, I can also lean the FastTrack from edge-to-edge. I don’t usually sense that in inflatables. Usually, they are very two-dimensional, sitting flat on the surface of the water, but this kayak actually has a little bit more of a three-dimensional feel. I especially noticed this in the moving water and small rapids as I entered and exited eddies and could tilt the boat. In flatwater, when it’s on its edge, I could sweep and spin it around really nicely. There is also a removable fin, or skeg, at the stern, and when I had the kayak flat the fin combined with the V-hull to help lock the boat on course as it cut straight through the water.

Speedy setup time and compact storage

The V-hull isn’t the only great aspect to the FastTrack however.

For one, I really like the setup time of seven minutes. I unrolled it, blew it up and it was ready to go in no time flat and that was pumping it by hand. It’s a little work pumping it by hand, especially to get the floor to reach the maximum pressure of 10 psi. I prefer the electric pumps, where you just set the psi, hook it up to the car battery, and away it goes.

The FastTrack also packs down really small. The thing is really tiny compared to a hard-shell kayak and even other inflatables, and I really like how the storage bag works with it because it folds open. This makes it easy to roll it up and cinch down, as opposed to trying to fit it into a backpack. There’s nothing worse than having, say, a tent that you can’t put back in the bag. When you have to wrestle with it to fit into a tiny kit. For the FastTrack bag, you just, open a couple of flaps, fold the boat up into it, and cinch it down.

Outfitting

On the boat there is a deck bungee and a little bit of under-deck storage at the bow. Alongside the seating area, there is webbing you could clip a carabiner to. And, there is another under-deck storage area at the stern. These all provide places you could place a dry bag or other personal and safety items.

The FastTrack comes with two extremely nice, high-back seats, with padding on the butt, and a contoured backrest that rises high. Behind the seat, there is more storage with a removable zipper compartment, which is good for things like sunblock, a towel, or other items you want access to throughout the day.

Something the FastTrack does not have are footrests. I was able to work around this with a pretty easy fix, by taking a webbing strap and running it through those webbing loops to create a sort of footplate.

Drain holes

The FastTrack also has are a couple of drain ports for emptying water out of the boat. You can open up these drains like a purge valve, and the idea is that the water should empty.

During the test, Lego and I ran a small rapid with some fun waves that splashed into the kayak, and I opened the valve to see if it would empty the water out. I think if anything it let water in. I have the same problem with my Aquaglide Chelan. They say it’s like a scupper or a self-draining valve, but I believe a boat has to ride at a certain height for the water to exit otherwise a certain amount is going to sit inside. After opening the drain valve I had to pull over to empty the FastTrack.

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A stable kayak design with high capacity

The stability on the FastTrack is massive. It’s all the stability you’re going to need. It is three feet wide with the inflated outer tubes that provide much of this stability. I also mentioned the edge-to-edge feel the boat has, and the shape of the hull with these side tubes also provides secondary stability when the kayak is tilted. The secondary stability is super confidence-inspiring in these inflatables because you can just lean way over, and you’ve got essentially these pontoons that give you a lot of feedback.

When I first saw the boat I spotted a sticker stating that it has 635 pounds of capacity, which means this thing is meant to be loaded down. You could add the second seat and paddle it tandem; you could paddle it with your kid; you could load up all your camping gear and do an overnight. You get this big, stable sit-on-top type kayak, and it weighs just 31 pounds.

Who is the Sea Eagle FastTrack right for?

I think the FastTrack is right for someone who has space and transportation issues they need a solution for. For example, if you’ve got a small car without roof racks, or you’re not going to lift a kayak up on your car. Another situation may be if you’re looking for a lightweight inflatable tandem but would still like to have good performance. Or, if you know you want an inflatable and have been wishing for one more capable on flatwater, but which can still handle some whitewater, then the FastTrack may be right for you.

You can find the 385ft FastTrack available from Sea Eagle and retailers including Amazon.