Packrafting: A Beginner's Guide

Packrafts are rugged, portable rafts, small enough to attach under a rucksack, but stable on the water to reassure first time paddlers. Weighing from 1-3 kilos, they open up a whole new world of amphibious adventuring, from navigating easily accessible waterways to discovering more challenging rivers and lochs only reachable on foot or bicycle.

Packrafting: A Beginners' Guide is a perfect introduction to the game-changing recreational opportunities opened up by packrafting. It takes you through the different types and features of packrafts to ensure that you buy a boat that is right for you and have the right gear to use with it. It clearly explains the basic paddling skills and how to safely evaluate risks on the water. It also introduces the different types of adventures you can undertake with your packraft, from paddling a local canal or river to lashing a bicycle over the bow or using a packable sail to traverse open water.

The book is comprehensively illustrated with over 130 colour photographs making it easy to understand and clear to follow.

Praise for Packrafting: A Beginner's Guide

"Interesting and informative. Chris Scott's very careful descriptions and explanations of the gadgetry did convince me that this system would work if one wanted to tramp the moorland as well as explore freshwater lakes and rivers."
— Yachting Monthly

About the Author

Chris Scott is a travel adventurer and writer. His Adventure Motorcycling Handbook is now in its 8th edition. He has written various Overland books for Trailblazer Guides and co-authored several editions of the Rough Guide to Australia. He discovered inflatable kayaks in 2005 when rafting Idaho's Salmon River and has since done many IK expeditions.

About Fernhurst Books

Fernhurst Books was founded in 1979, initially publishing books related to dinghy racing. The list soon expanded to include cruising and other watersports. In 2006 the business was sold to John Wiley, but in 2013 a group of sailing enthusiasts (including the original founder) bought the list and name back, once again creating an independent nautical publisher owned and run by sailors. Fernhurst continues to publish books that instruct, inform and inspire those with a passion on, in or under the water. Their 140+ titles range from how-to guides to narrative to coffee-table books, covering sailing, surfing, canoeing, kayaking, stand up paddleboarding, swimming, diving and fishing.