Submitted: 09-16-2008 by lhartje
I thought I'd add some useful information to this thread rather than the typical review since there are so many already. I own a Tsunami 145 plastic kayak. Don't get me wrong, I really like this boat and rate it an 8 out of 10 because of the weight, its shape and speed (top speed of approximately 5 mph by GPS), all related to the roto-molded plastic construction. This is a great boat, just not the greatest boat.
What I can share with you is something I learned about the 145, something Wilderness Systems won’t tell us, its dry storage capacity. I wanted to know how much the bow and stern compartments would hold so I calculated their volume.
First I weighed the kayak on a doctor's office quality balance beam scale. My 145 weighed 59 lbs (ouch) without a rudder which I have on order. Next, I blocked one end of the kayak so one hatch was over the scale with the boat level and weighed it again. Then I filled the compartment with water and recorded the weight. I subtracted the empty balanced weight of the kayak from the water filled weight to obtain the weight of the water in the compartment. I did this for both ends of the boat.
Water weighs 8.34 lbs/gallon so I divided the water weight by 8.34 to determine the number of gallons per compartment. Then I converted gallons to liters, and gallons to cubic inches. The results are as follows:
Front compartment: 155 lbs of water, 18.61 gallons of water, 70.4 liters, 4299 cubic inches
Stern compartment: 210 lbs of water, 25.21 gallons of water, 95.4 liters, 5824 cubic inches
Total dry storage:, 166 liters, 10,123 cubic inches
That's the equivalent of two 5000 cubic inch backpacks worth of dry storage, more than enough space for a week's worth of camping gear and food using backpacking equipment. I sleep better just knowing my 145 holds 10,000 cubic inches of stuff and keeps it safe and dry. |