The making of THE RUCKRAFT
For years we have been opening up new routes across land and water, we call it cross country swimming.
We had mixed together different bits of kit from hiking, swimming, sailing and boating. Nothing was perfect. Waterproof rucksacks aren’t great for hiking and don’t float. Swimming tow floats are too small to carry the kit you need for a good day out or even an overnight adventure.
The beginning
Our first foray into Cross Country Swimming was 2015 - a small band of us crossed Windermere and Coniston via Three Dubs Tarn and Moss Eccles Tarn. The trip was beautiful and was written up in The Guardian. But this picture tells the story of the problem we wanted to solve with the RuckRaft® - multiple dry bags, clipped together to carry enough gear for the hike and overnight stops.
Taking shape
The RuckRaft® started to take shape in 2016. We strapped a large child’s swimming inflatable to waterproof rucksacks with luggage straps and swam across Windermere on a journey to Loughrigg Tarn and Langdale YHA and then Grasmere, Rydal Water and Buckstones Jum.
Suddenly multi day trips of swimming and walking from A to B were possible. The trip felt a little bit epic. Now we started to look into designing the right product.
The problems WE NEEDED TO SOLVE
1 — Waterproof rucksacks were not comfortable to walk with for a long distance. Most people who enjoy hiking have a trusty rucksack with proper lumbar support they like to use. No compromise on Rucksack quality was a must.
2 — So a modular kit of inflatable raft and dry bag to fit any rucksack and hiking kit seemed to be the most effective, versatile, and practical combination.
3 — This kit had to pack down light but also support a full 70l pack as we loved the multi day mix of swimming and hiking and felt sure others would too.
4 — Affordable. For the price of an average hotel room, a whole new way to travel opens up.
Prototypes
We started to sketch up our ideas and the early prototypes were functional - the bags floated, you could swim with them comfortably. With a raft that folded down to well under 1kg of packweight we could comfortably float and tow a full 70l Rucksack (enough for 3 days outdoors including stoves, tents etc). But the rafts were a bit ugly.
Manufacturing
Getting the right buoyancy and attractive shape to the raft was proving difficult. But we started to get a little more success moving to a new manufacturer and a process of High Frequency welding. Which is strong.
The dry bag
Next was to construct a dry bag big and tough enough to hold any size of rucksack. After lots of sketches we went for something very simple – an oversized bag that could fit any size of Rucksack along with shoes, clothes, tent and any other kit for adventures over land and water.
Materials
The high frequency welding process requires special fabric. We started working with Rivertex ‘Riverseal’. Designed specifically for high-performance applications. The fabric is durable Nylon fabric with high tenacity, strengthened with a full TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane) coating on one side and reinforced with a TPU lick coating that enables the high performance, weldable, air holding applications. TPU is fully recyclable and biodegradable. Nylon is not an easy or cheap material to recycle.
This means that the RuckRaft® is durable and repairable. The next step is to work on the sustainability and find method for recycling the Nylon.
Testing
We started to get to the product we wanted. Product development and field testing continued in seas, rivers and lakes. It worked beautifully – it was easy to swim with a fully packed dry bag and packed down to a very portable 1kg.
The Ruckraft
Finally, it all started to come together. Over two years in the making, we have come from a messy, imperfect mishmash of kit to a practical, lightweight and fully functioning purpose-built product for cross country swimming. We hope you like it.
The RuckRaft® is available exclusively at our online shop.