Sea Eagle RazorLite Inflatable Kayak - Lightweight, Drop Stitch, High Speed Touring Kayak - Solo or Tandem - Tall Back Seat(s), Paddle(s), Backpack, Skeg and Pump

Just came back from my first paddle in my new boat, a Sea Eagle Razorlite 393rl. It’s an all drop-stich inflatable kayak and short version; I liked it and would probably buy again.I have owned and sold several kayaks over the years along with paddling many others. My current fleet is made up of a Jackson Tupelo, a Native Watercraft Ultimate and a Liquid Logic XP10. I bought the inflatable so I could have something that would fit in the back seat of my truck when my camper is on it and not have to take the boat trailer unless I wanted one of the other boats. Previous attempts at this included two different ORU models. My first kayak ever was a cheap $100 inflatable and it was terrible. The boat flexed with every stroke, the seat was uncomfortable and it was short and slow. The new boat was just over $1000, so I had higher hopes. I had watched over a dozen YouTube videos on inflatables and this boat got rave reviews and generally ranked first for flatwater, so I was excited to take it out today. The boat took about 15 minutes to setup (first time, not too bad) but it is definitely a wet launch. By that I mean that it has a skeg, and I walked out into knee deep water before I put it on, plus getting in was much easier with boat floating. I like the boat, and it’s not too heavy, but there isn’t a handle in the middle of the boat to carry it solo, the handles are on each end. I get it from a design perspective that it must fold up, but those handles would have been nice and maybe I would have put the skeg in on dry land and carried the boat but hey, a little water never hurt. Once in the water, the seat back was great, it’s high and comfortable. The seat base is firm and keeps you up off the bottom of the boat by about an inch and a half so no wet read end, not sure how I’ll like it on an extended paddle but I can always add a gel pad. The foot pegs are awesome, that was a huge factor in my picking this particular boat. I saw reviews complaining about putting them in/out but if you do them when the boat is not inflated it wasn’t an issue, that’s in the manual and the setup video but I’ve still seen reviewers try to put them once the boats inflated, that’s no bueno.Paddling impressions, as I said it has a skeg and it paddled great. Straight and fast and zero flex in the boat when I stroked the paddle. The all drop-stich construction, the skeg and foot pegs are such a game changer in an inflatable. So much better than the ORUs and my prior inflatable in that regard, although to be honest, that first inflatable shouldn’t really even count since it was so cheap. I do think that the boat could easily keep up with someone in my Tupelo with equal strokes. Not as stable as the Tupelo as many other reviewers had mentioned but to me it felt like a sea kayak that I paddled in Puget Sound. After a few minutes on the water I got used to it. Wind on the water today was 15-17, padding into the wind or with the wind the boat tracked great, even better than the Tupelo when going downwind. However, turning in the wind took some work (one review said it turned like a school bus) but again, it’s a long’ish boat with a skeg and no rudder so I’m not surprised. When I first launched the wind was on my side and I felt unsteady, but after a little while on the water I felt more in controlFinal impression and Suggestions for improvement: As I mentioned before, a handle in the middle would make it much easier to carry, and maybe a couple more d-rings so I could have a place to connect a water bottle. The seat back does have a generous compartment for a water bottle and other stuff but reaching that while paddling is a little difficult for us “fluffy” guys. Also, if the skeg had a fold up position I would feel more comfortable putting it on while still on shore. One negative is that I will definitely have to wash it after each use and then let it dry out in the garage before storage, the wet entry/exit of knee-deep water and central Oklahoma’s dirt almost guarantees this, but I’m not thinking of this as my daily boat but more of a road trip boat, so I’m ok with that. Also, the “carbon pro” paddle upgrade over the standard paddle was a waste of $50, I should have known better. The shaft is carbon but the blades are heavy plastic. Not any flex that I noticed so that’s good but can’t compare to my Werner paddle. I was hoping to have a spare carbon paddle for $50 but like I said, I should have known better for the price. Again, this is a first impression with less than 90 minutes on the water, so we’ll see how I like it long term.

These are a great sturdy kayaks. We ordered 2 of them and couldn't be more pleased. They are very solid when inflated and move through the water with little effort. My husband and I are both "senior citizens" and had no problem loading and unloading the kayaks. They easily fit in the back of our Jeep Patriot. It took us a little while to figure out how to fold them back up as the online video didn't match up with our kayaks. We called Sea Eagle customer service and they were very helpful and walked us through the process.The first time out we used the manual pump provided to inflate both of them. It's certainly doable, but not exactly fun. We ordered a Sea Eagle battery operated pump which does NOT have to be plugged into the car cigarette lighter. The pump is amazing and inflated both kayaks with no issues. We carry the folded kayaks to the shore line, unfold, inflate and off we go. Fun Fun Fun

Dropstitch is pretty cool.I was pretty big into tube inflatable packrafts because they're light but durable, especially for backpacking. But the biggest problem is that they're unbearably slow against the wind or currents. Even on a lake, if it's windy, the surface of the water runs in the same direction, and that just makes making any progress impossible.Even tube inflated kayaks aren't super fast.They're also bulky.So having dropstitch kayaks are a real boon. For larger lakes, the Sea Eagle just slices through the current quickly and easily. Even without much effort and taking a lot of breaks, I was still averaging 2mph, and had "burst" speeds of 20 minutes where I was hitting 3.3mph.Kayaking with the wind at my back, it was pretty easy to hit burst speeds of 4.1mph (at least according to my gps.It feels tippy, but I didn't really worry about tipping over.The foot peddles are what really makes it easy to comfortably get power into each stroke. Acceleration is easy, and maintaining speed is easy.The skeg works great. Haven't used this kayak without the skeg yet.The seat is comfortable'ish, but it does get uncomfortable after about 2 hours or so.The outer skin is pretty rugged. it could probably take a number of gliding up to a beach and grounding. But it's not a hard plastic, so probably wouldn't recommend doing that too often.The only issue I have really comes from the one advantage of packrafts, and that's the weight.From what I understand, the Sea Eagle is not considered heavy, but coming from the packraft world where most packrafts range from 3lbs to about 8lbs, the Sea Eagle is pretty cumbersome.All in all, the sea eagle is an amazing dropstitch kayak, much easier to inflate and takedown/clean up than my other dropstitch, and performs well in the water.Can't ask for much better than that.