USING THE RUCKRAFT


Below are some points of guidance on water safety and maintenance of your RuckRaft.

  1. Be safe

  2. Using the RuckRaft

  3. Maintenance and care


1. Be safe

The RuckRaft is for experienced, competent open water swimmers. Those who know the risks, their limits and also know the terrain and water. Before each use:

  • Check the local weather conditions.

  • Check the condition of the body of water - the temperature, the strength and direction of flows or tides.

  • If you don’t know the body of water well, try to check with someone local who does. Or just be very conservative in your ambition.

  • Make sure you abide by any local conditions for swimming.

If you are new to open water - don’t use the RuckRaft quite yet. Get more experience and confidence and start slowly.

The Outdoor Swimming Society has useful guides to safety:

https://www.outdoorswimmingsociety.com/summer-safety/

https://www.outdoorswimmingsociety.com/is-it-safe/


2. Using the RuckRaft

  • Pack your dry bag and make sure you can roll the open top down 3 or 4 times.

  • Place the bag on the raft with the open (but now rolled down) end sitting on the nose of the RuckRaft.

  • Adjust with the vertical strap so the raft is evenly balanced in the water.

• Strap in your drybag in with the X straps to make sure it is secure (you can clip water bottles to the straps for easy access).

  • The RuckRaft can float up to 15kg but start with less and build up as you become more confident and experienced with the kit.

3. Maintenance and care of the RuckRaft

The RuckRaft is made of tough, marine grade, durable Rivertex materials with high frequency welded seams. The Drybag has no zips to go wrong. However, cross country swimming can be rough and tumble and takes place across all sorts of terrain. This means we can’t give you any guarantees unfortunately. But here are a few basics in terms of how to look after your kit.

• Do not leave the RuckRaft in the sun any longer than necessary.

• Rinse, hose down the raft in freshwater after a swim (especially if in the Lake District as there is a risk of transferring invasive species).

  • Dry the RuckRaft and bag dry out of direct sunlight before rolling up and packing away until your next adventure.

Punctures. Given the RuckRaft is inflatable, there is a risk of puncture (although with the Rivertex material this should be very rare). Two fixes are available:

  1. Gorilla tape - quick and dirty. The Gorilla Tape ‘handy roll’ is described as ‘Perfect for: traveling, camping, boating, sporting and more!’. And they can add RuckRafting to the list, this a good portable solution that stays adhered in water.

  2. For longer term, better looking repairs we will soon have a kit of patches that adhere and bind in water.

Also, the RuckRaft is reversible to some degree so if your puncture is waterside then we recommend patching it up, flipping the raft over so that the puncture side is not submerged.

If the puncture is more of a rip and tear then drop us a line. There are a few solutions with the Bostik 3206 Glue but those are more likely to require a fix by us or the factory.

Happy Cross Country Swimming!