Intex Excursion Pro Kayak Series

All ready have the Pro 2 but tiered of looking over someone’s shoulder, time to break free and be captain of my own craft. Not used yet but blown one up at home , perfect. A little longer then I imagined, I’m no spring chicken I can lift it and carry it a short distance but luckily we have a trolley. Lots of accessories that I probably won’t use, a cup holder might have been handy. Arrived earlier than stated. Definitely would recommend. Looking forward to first trip. Just the same as the Pro 2 but for one person. Excellent. Folds up , fits in its own bag comes with pump and gauge. I can blow it up myself and sling it in the back of my car.

Al parecer se ve de buena calidad, el material es aceptable, lo único que no me gusto fue que al recibirlos, uno de los paquetes venía abierto y muy golpeado, se ve que abrieron la caja ademas que no conozco la compañía con la que mandaron los dos paquetes

Compared to a good hard kayak, inflatables are generally terrible, including this one ‒ but that’s not the point: Inflatables are the only option for air-travel, and even in local use their quick availability is attractive.

This kayak can, with modifications, perform decently as a solo or tandem inflatable. It seems well made and is a good value, although a substantial number of other buyers have experienced leaks. I’m happy with the Excursion Pro’s valves, spaciousness and construction quality. It has good air valves (except in the stock seats and in the supplement seat pad), and has rod holders, foot-rests, interchangeable short and long skegs, and mounts for electronics. It also has a lot of well-placed D-rings, useful for attaching many things, including aftermarket seats.

The Excursion Pro has a proprietary hull material that Intex claims is extremely tough. Unfortunately, Intex gains a price advantage by skimping on warranty expenses. It limits its warranty to only manufacturing defects that are claimed within 90 days. To solidify its lack of responsibility, a warning in the Owners Manual says Type IIIB, inflatable kayaks [are] intended [only] for beach use [and] short distance and short time cruising. Intex claims no whitewater capability at all for its kayaks.

In stock form the Excursion Pro is so dangerously slow that it is virtually unusable when paddling solo into mild wind combined with mild current. It requires the power of two paddlers.

The short paddles, often criticized, would be fine for short paddlers in a hard-shell kayak.  They are quite rigid, especially considering that they consist of five short pieces clicked together, and the nicely cupped blades are adjustable in angle with respect to each other, though they are a bit small.

Unfortunately, for an inflatable kayak’s wide beam, the supplied paddles are terrible because they’re too short. On a car trip (rather than one by airplane), one should bring longer paddles.

Intex could easily offer longer paddles by making the 11.5″ center section much longer, but Intex doesn’t, and I couldn’t find a longer center section on the aftermarket.  I then thought of fabricating a new center tube for the Intex paddle, but I was unable to obtain aluminum tubing of the proper specifications (26mm OD; 22mm ID). I purchased from China for $29 a 500mm carbon-fiber tube of that specification, and fabricated a longer center section for one of the Intex paddles, increasing the overall length by 7″. I should have bought a longer tube, but that paddle is now adequate. The carbon tube was slightly scant in outer diameter, so I snugged it up with a bit of heavy black tape. I will replace the tape with a thin layer of fiberglass.

That was a bit spendy, and I had to wait a long time for the rather short carbon fiber tube from China. I later found that 3/4″ pvc conduit pipe is a perfect fit into the metal pole sections, but additional machining is necessary, and it is probably beyond the ability of many buyers.

I cut the conduit to 22.5″, making it 11″ longer than the factory 11.5″ center pipe. The interior ends of the conduit must be smoothly hogged out a bit, to a depth of 1″, to fit the button snap devices from the stock paddle center sections. After trying a number of other tools with poor results, I found that a flat drill bit for wood did the job. The button snap devices that I pirated from the stock Intex center pole sections still wouldn’t work in the conduit ‒ the wall was too thick. I used a rotary moto tool and an appropriate small bit (inserting the shaft first through the end of the conduit and then through a hole that I had drilled for the pin/button) to grind the bottom of the button hole closer to the surface of the conduit.

PVC conduit is more flexible than ideal, but some fiberglass wrapping of the exposed part of the conduit adds strength and greatly lessens the flexibility. (Additionally, a fiberglass wrap is harder, more scratch resistant, and less prone to have its paint scratched and rubbed off.)

I did that to two poles and they worked well.

That, however, is not enough to make the Excursion Pro K2 usable. Its atrocious seats must be replaced ‒ under ideal conditions they offer little back support, and every time I tried to use them they soon lost air and became useless, providing no back support at all. They have a single air valve for the bottom and the backrest. If a the bottom section loses air under the pressure of sitting on it the whole seat goes limp, and it’s very difficult to reinflate or reposition the seat while sitting on it out on the water. The stock seats soon reduce me to kneeing on the kayak’s unstable floor and paddling it like a canoe (resulting in severe thigh strains, because (unlike a canoe) the floor flexes with every movement and there are no cross bars or seats to lean on, to stabilize one’s body). After returning from my third and final attempt to use a stock seat, carrying the kayak back to my hotel, I gave the seat away to a homeless person. I was never going to use one again.

One absolutely must replace both stock Excursion Pro seats. Good gray and black stiff foam seats of a certain type, with straps fore and aft for attachment to D-rings, give excellent back support and can be found on ebay for less than $30 each, or on Amazon for somewhat more. There are several “brands” and unbranded ones, all essentially identical.

I also purchased a Sea Eagle 370 Pro (at the time $395 on Amazon, but now only $304). It’s white, rubbery, plain, homely, has no D-rings (for attaching things) or other amenities, and is heavier and bulkier, but in stock condition it is functionally superior to the Excursion Pro K2, and its seats are comfortable and reliable (though I have on occasion had to blow one up again, out on the water). Though the 370 lacks any handles, footrests, electronics mounts, fishing amenities, etc., it has the advantages of being comfortable in stock condition, not phenomenally slow, and rated for Class III whitewater.

If the 370 is capsized, it is possible for the seats to spill out and drift away, as they cannot be fastened to the kayak. Illustratively, if a seat is placed at the beam, for use by a solo paddler, it is squeezed less tightly by the side pontoons than if it were in the bow or stern, and it will readily fall out if the kayak is carried (dangled) by a single pontoon.

A big problem with the Sea Eagle 370 Pro is that it doesn’t have a large removable skeg. (Such skegs, like those that come with the Excursion Pro, are usually made of durable hard plastic, and click into a sturdy socket on the bottom of the kayak.) The 370 instead has two short rubbery skegs that are permanently attached to the kayak. When the kayak is folded or rolled for storage, they get bent and stay bent, making it difficult to paddle in a straight line. (They can be straightened in a 20 minute session with a hair dryer, but if the kayak is then packed up they will again emerge bent the next time the 370 is used.)

The Sea Eagle 370, updated in recent years, now has five relatively large floor tubes, instead of the seven smaller floor tubes of its prior iteration. The new version is claimed to be more rigid and much faster than the old one. The pathetically slow Intex Excursion Pro K2 (in stock configuration), like the old and slow version of the Sea Eagle, has seven smallish floor tubes, instead of five larger ones.

I have found no relatively inexpensive inflatable kayak other than Sea Eagle 370 that is (in stock configuration) suitable in speed, comfort and safety for both solo and tandem kayaking, and is readily available in the US. Even the Sea Eagle 370 Pro and the Excursion Pro K2, which are both only about 12.5′ long, are very poor for tandem use if both occupants are heavy and one is a weak paddler.

The Excursion Pro K2 has adequate room for two adults, and it allows a solo kayaker to sit in the center of the kayak (at the “beam”).

In tandem use, I recently brought my Excursion Pro K2 (outfitted with longer paddles and good aftermarket seats) out through ocean surf and (after paddling for two hours to some sea caves and back) brought it in again through the surf. Throughout, it was very stable and comfortable. The bow wanted to bend upward as we charged out through the modest surf, but my brother pressed it down adequately, and we had a blast. The kayak was very stable in the ocean swells. When we came back in through the surf, however, it suddenly went sideways near the beach, and waves completely swamped us, filling the kayak to the gunwales, though we did not capsize.

The possibility of bringing one’s own kayak by airliner to a distant destination is for me one of the great draws of this and other inflatable kayaks. I enjoy paddling without guides or groups, causally and without time limits, schedules, transportation issues, or limitations on where I can go. Avoiding rental fees for every outing is also a giant plus.  In many of the secluded off season places I tend to go to, rental isn’t even a option, even if I were there during normal business hours, which is often not the case.

So good that I’m going to buy a second one