Hey! This is Emily at Oz Inflatable Kayaks and I'm talking to you about the
AdvancedFrame Convertible Kayak from Advanced Elements.
It's our best-selling Kayak and always has been, I'm going to have a talk about why.
Basically, so you can decide if it's going to be the right Kayak for you. This
is Andrew and Peta from Top Wire Traveler and this kind of sums up a lot
of my customers. You know when you're camped on a river and you think, "I wonder
what's around that bend?" Well now we can find out for ourselves! So, we sell
this kayak a lot to people that are traveling, but it's also great for people
that just, you know, don't want a huge kayak to lug on and off their roof racks.
It's great for families, it's great for actually multi-day expeditions, it's
great for dogs - it really suits a lot of people and we're gonna talk about why.
But the first thing that's amazing about it, is that it's great to paddle! And you
know, that really should be the number one priority when you're buying a kayak,
is how good is it to paddle. A lot of people look at durability and setup and all
these others features (that are still important), but they sort of forget that
if they get something really cheap, that it's probably going to be rubbish to
paddle and therefore you're not going to enjoy yourself and you're not going to
want to do it. So how do we get such a great paddling experience from this
kayak? Well, it's part of the AdvancedFrame line. So the AdvancedFrame line is
a patented design that Advanced Elements designed well over a decade now
and it consists of a shell over an inner tube, and in the shell is aluminium ribs
in the bow and stern. So they look like this - this is kind of like a trace out of
what it would look like. You don't see it, actually you don't install it, you
don't have to assemble anything, it's just there. They're just there and what
they do is give you this really vertical bow and stern. You can see what it does,
it cuts through the chop. Okay, so these are sit-in kayaks, they're not sit on
top kayak. Sit-on-top kayaks are great and they serve a purpose, but if you want
to kind of get cracking through the water, a sit-in kayak is better. It sits
in the water, it's less wind affected, it's better a hydrodynamic design. So
this bow here, you can see it's cutting through the chop. What it's also doing is
stopping the kayak from waggling, so you get this beautiful glide, this
really easy tracking experience. There's one in the stern as well. Again, that
vertical sort of stern there, it acts like a skeg - it kind of draws the water
behind, it keeps you tracking straight. Now, there's
this beautifully smooth hull that goes around the bottom, and there's a fin on
the bottom as well. So why am i going on about this straight tracking?
Well, there's nothing more frustrating than trying to get a kayak to go
straight. So, if you've got one that kind of already goes straight by itself, it's
such a delightful experience and it's easy, right? It's really easy to paddle,
even if you've got zero experience. The other thing that makes this kayak really
easy to paddle, is it's so stable. So me and my husband went out - we'd
had a big night and here we are just having a sleep. So there's not a whole
lot of kayaks in the market you can have a sleep in. Now, I should say that that is
not the intended purpose of this kayak and you should sleep at your own risk,
but you get my drift, right? It's really, really stable, really easy to paddle - that
means beginners can use it. But it's so long, it's actually really fast for more
advanced paddlers as well. This is Darren at Norfolk Island tours, so he does
Advanced Fishing and Kayaking I think is the name of his to a group. Now, he needed
something that was going to cater to kind of all levels of physical ability
and experience, you know? So he was happy to (and also suitable for open ocean as
you can see they go out in open ocean), so he was happy to have a go of these
AdvancedFrame convertibles and really just came back raving about them. He says
here, "they're really safe and stable and easy to use,
not to mention fun!" It's been a great success for him. Now, the other thing
that's really important is comfort. And again, it's not something people think
about but there's nothing worse than an aching back and a numb bum when you're
kayaking. So what we've got in all of these AdvancedFrame kayaks and including
this one, the AdvancedFrame Convertible, is these high backed, contoured seats. So
they clip in to the inner tube there and they're up high. Now if you get them
angled sort of kind of forwards a bit when you sit your bum in, they really
support your back. It's genuine support - you can put your weight and
relax in this kayak, and that, all of a sudden, opens up what you can do. If you
can be comfortable, that means you can go for more than an hour, you can go for a
few hours, you can have a half days, you can have a full days and we even have
customers that go multi-day expeditions in these kayaks because they're so
comfortable and so stable. The other thing you've got is this cushion - so the
floor in here is like a lilo, basically, you can take it out in fact,
use it as a lilo if you'd like - it's basically a low pressure air bed and
it's so comfy, so this was really important for me because I suffer from
numbness if I sit on a hard surface - I get a numb right leg and so to be able
to sit on a cushion is just delightful. And again, it's like the quality of the
paddling experience - if you are comfortable and happy and having a good
time, you'll use it, right? If you're not, you won't use it. The other thing that
makes it so comfortable is the space. So you can see there's a big bloke here
sitting in his kayak and he's got his foot against the footrest. He doesn't
even have them anywhere near the paddler in front. If you have a look at a lot of
inflatable tandem kayaks and even just regular tandem kayaks, the person behind
has got their feet kind of tucked up against the thighs of the person in
front. They're really on top of each other and that's not comfortable. Not
only is it not comfortable, it's not so versatile. So you know when you've got a
lot of space there's lots of other things you can do. So for example you can
take your dog your dogs, you can look at taking small children, you can look at
going on a multi-day expedition, you can look at even just day trips, you can look
at even a little bit of fishing, right? So it just expands what you can do as well
as making you more comfortable. And here's the other really
good feature - tandem kayaks are kind of jokingly known as the divorce special,
because you're clanging paddles. When you've got this much space between you,
you can basically paddle however you like, okay, so it kind of saves those
arguments a little bit. I still cannot control how much work the
person in the back does, okay? That's up to you! Now, the other thing is you'll
notice how incredibly long this kayak is. It's about 4.7 meters and that gives you
speed. So I touched on this before, you know, really long kayak - you get great
momentum. You've got a bow that cuts through the chop, you can really make pace. Now
some of you are thinking oh I'm just recreational kayaker, it doesn't matter.
Well, let me tell you, it kind of does, you know - it's frustrating to be going slow
and pushing and working hard and feel like you're not getting anywhere. It's
much more fun if you can make pace. And if you're doing something like a
multi-day expedition, then you need to make pace, so it allows you to do that.
Now, versatility - this kayak really takes the cake for versatility. So you've got a
solo seating position as you can see from Ailsa here - so this is the clips for
the front, this is the clips of the back, there's actually a separate set of clips
for the solo and what that does is keep you
balanced in the kayak. So if your bow was out of the water then you don't get that
nice tracking experience and same with the stern, right? So this allows you to
sit balanced in the kayak and get good momentum and have a solo experience. So
Ailsa and Greg got this one because they knew they were traveling in Australia
and they knew that there would be times when one of them felt like a paddle but
the other didn't and then there will be times when they wanted to go together.
So getting the Convertible allowed them to only have to have one kayak, but
do both, if that makes sense. So it's really popular for that reason. It's also
popular for this reason - so this is amazing, so the kayak comes, as you can
see from Ailsa, the kayak comes with this wide open cockpit. What you can do is zip
on these decks. These are optional extras that you can buy at any time. This is the
solo, the single deck conversion and it gives you a single cockpit with
inflatable coaming, and this is a double - it gives you two cockpits with
inflatable coaming. Now that, in and of itself, will protect you from some sun
and some splash and whatnot, but what it also does is allows you to put on a
spray skirt. We sell these spray skirts as an optional extra and this guy's
wearing one in the front here, so all of a sudden if you want to go on an Arctic
expedition (and I know you all do), you can! And we have customers that do this
kind of thing, it's amazing, right? So even if you just want to go in cold climates -
we sell actually quite a bit (surprisingly) into Tasmania, you know,
where it's can be quite cool and especially in Melbourne in winter, same
thing, it can be quite cool. This just keeps you warm and keeps you dry and it
opens up the experience for you. Now, oh sorry, the other thing it does is it
allows you to go on open ocean, right, it just protects you from that splash, okay,
it increases the sort of classification of the kayak. Now a lot of customers say to
me, no I'm not going, I don't need that, I'm not going in open ocean, I'm not
going down anywhere cold, but you never know, and it's nice to know that you can
come back later, buy these decks and skirts and be on your way for another
adventure because what I've found with a lot of my customers is they start out as
a beginner, saying oh just a bit of recreational kayaking, and then their
comfort zone kind of expands and then they find themselves doing longer
paddles and they find themselves becoming a bit more adventurous - the next
thing you know, they're like oh we're doing an overnight camp, sending me their
pictures, it's great, right, it's really awesome to see people
getting out and doing things they never thought they would be capable of doing.
And that's the other amazing thing about this kayak, is the weight capacity.
You can really, really load it up and it's stable. This is from a different
Greg "I was concerned it would be unstable but
it was steady as a rock even without anyone in it to, go figure" You know they
thought it might be a bit top-heavy but it's not, it's an amazing kayak for
loading up with gear and dogs and children, as I said before, so really
versatile. Now, durability. So I wouldn't be able to sell an inflatable kayak
without talking about durability. I think people are often concerned about this,
they are often concerned about punctures, especially. The question comes up a lot
about submerged rocks and tree branches where the visibility and the water isn't
good and honestly, it's just not something that ever really happens. The
only thing I would say is make sure when you take the kayak out of the water that
you, if you're not packing it up straight away, let some air out. Heat makes air
pressure increase and so that's the only time we have customers that are coming
back to us. At least once a year, someone comes back because they've left their
kayak out and the heat has gotten to the chambers, the air pressure expands
and the seam gets a bit of damage. Now it's not a huge deal, we can replace your
tube, but better to not let it happen. But punctures - punctures don't really
happen and the reason is they've made these kayaks very, very durable, right, so
you've got this very thick hull - it's a triple-layer PVC tarpaulin hull. So this
is the hull. A layer of fabric stops the PVC from from stretching and you've got
PVC either side. Now if you hit a rock or submerged branch, you might get a bit of
cosmetic marking on the kayak, but certainly nothing approaching any sort
of real damage. Now that's the outer layer. Then you've got an inner tube
cover, then you've got the inner tube. So you've really got to get through five
layers of fabric to get a puncture and I think that's why it never happens, you
know. I've dragged these kayaks across rock walls and oysters and all sorts and
you know I'm kind of pushing them to the max to test them out - it's really not
been an issue. That's what Advanced Elements do really, really well, okay?
They test these things, they make sure the kayak is rugged. You've also got
multiple air chambers so this is the AdvancedFrame model not the AdvancedFrame
Convertible, but the designs are the same in the sense that you've got
this inner tube with a wall a vertical wall down the middle, okay, that's why
you pump two main chambers, and you'll see that in
a little bit, and what that means is if something was to happen to one of the
chambers, you've got a second one there. So this is the setup video. I'll just
mute this as it plays. So what you want to do first is unfold the kayak, pull it
out of the bag (see how it packs up into a bag? that's the other miracle about
this kayak - you could get it back into the bag without too much difficulty), you
unfold the kayak and then basically you inflate the two main chambers, which is
the inner tube. Remember, there's a wall down the middle so he's doing chamber
one, then you go on to chamber two. Now a lot of people say to me, "how come I don't
inflate chamber one to the maximum pressure, 2 PSI?" Well, because there's a
wall. The wall is flexible (the wall is PVC), so when you inflate the second
chamber, it pushes back on the first chamber and equalizes the pressure, then
you inflate the floor. Now remember, this is a low-pressure cushion - it's for your
bum for a bit of comfort, so you don't need to put a whole lot of air in that
one. You can inflate the thwart. The thwart is basically a footrest for the person in
the back, so it's actually optional, if you don't need it or you don't want it
or you're saving space you can go without. Then you inflate these little
deck lifts - they just help the water shed off the kayak if there are any drips on the
deck. Again, really an optional feature. You insert these deck separators, they
just give the kayak a bit of shape. There's one in the stern there and one
in the back here and then you basically clip in the seats and away you go.
So these are the old seats - the new ones are all the nice high back, contoured
ones and that's it. Really, really simple and quick setup. And again, that's a
feature I don't think people really think too much about before they're
buying, but it's critical. If you can't face, if you can't bear the thought of
setting up your kayak, you're not going to go out in it, you're not going to use
it and the use, I keep saying this, but it's just so important that you
consider, am I going to use this? because you know a value judgment (when you're
sort of deciding what to spend), a value judgment depends on use, you know? I spent
a lot of money on my shoes because I wear them every single day. I'm using
them a heap. So it's the same kind of decision here - if you're going to use it
a lot, it's worth spending money on and it's kind of vice versa - if you spend
money on something you'll end up using it a lot, right? And then of course the
miracle of all of this is that it fits into a bag, right? So again,
great for people traveling - fits well into caravans, camper trailers, RVs but it
fits on airplanes, but also just for convenience, like, it saves you having to
get roof racks and lift it on and off you can - a lot of people leave it in
their car, basically, so that whenever they stumble across a beautiful waterway,
it's right there. I've lots of people in apartments, it's really a great option in
terms of storage. Now, a lot of people ask me what is the difference between the
AdvancedFrame Convertible and the AdvacedFrame Convertible Elite. There's
three key features that the Elite has that the AdvancedFrame convertible
doesn't. The first one is a drop-stitch floor. So you can kind of see how the
floor looks different and the seats look slightly different. In here, the floor
looks flat. It's a high pressure floor, unlike the soft cushion one under your
bum, this is drop-stitch, so it's stitched all the way through so you can put a
really high pressure in it, but it maintains its shape, so that gives you a
better performance in the water. Basically, it gives you more rigidity and
it gives you what's called chines (which are basically corners in the hull) helps
you with your tracking a bit. The other thing you get is lumber seats. This isn't
the exact seat because the seats that go in there have this little foam padding
to raise you up a bit, but what you've got is this lumber cushion. So you blow
in this tube and it gives you lumber support, so it's really really nice and
you blow it up or release it as you are paddling. It's a nice bit of extra
support there. And then the third feature is that the bag has backpack straps on
it. So that's the key differences between the AdvancedFrame convertible and the
AdvancedFrame Convertible Elite. This is Emily at Oz Inflatable Kayaks. I hope
this video has been helpful. If you have any questions though about the AdvancedFrame
Convertible Kayak or the AdvancedFrame Convertible Elite kayak, please get
in touch, I'd love to have a chat with you.