Archive : SOTAR Lance Review- To start off, I absolutely love this boat. The SOTAR Lance is the smallest of the Merlin Series boats and an absolute blast of a play boat.le

Project Details

Fabric 1

lighter weight fabric- 35oz Sotar Fabric
Producer/Manufacturer: ESquared
Primary Use: Main Fabric

Fabrication Name
Sotar

Fabrication Company
Sotar

Please describe the project specifications

To start off, I absolutely love this boat. The SOTAR Lance is the smallest of the Merlin Series boats and an absolute blast of a play boat. As with all rafts its not for every situation and definitely has its place in your fleet. Overall, it is a superb play boat with a lot of features to love chiefly among them is its ability to cut through waves with ease and its overall weight. This boat really pushes what you can do with a play boat and feels like a boat of a much larger class.

Let’s first take a look at what the Lance is: it is designed as a solid play boat that can handle anything steep low volume creeks can throw at it. It is one of the lightest boats out there weighing in below most kayaks.

The material is a lighter weight fabric, 35oz compared to the classic 41oz SOTAR fabric, again designed to save weight and bulk on the boat. Rather than the classically ultra slick UV coating and additional seat chafers welded on, it has seat chafers made from a thin layer of liquid lex to help you stay in place. Finally, several of the metal grommets have been replaced with plastic ones to reduce the overall weight of the boat even further.

Let’s talk about weight since that is the major player here. This boat is light, like scary light so light that if you back load the boat in high winds you can flip. Here’s what this means for you when you get to the water. First, I can shoulder this boat like a kayak and carry it down to the water, even my smallest team girls can carry this boat by themselves. You don’t have to have a messed up back from carrying your raft with this one, and if you have small kids then you can hand them some gear and possibly carry it yourself down to the water.

Next, the low weight means crazy fast acceleration so you can get the boat up to top speed very quickly. It is especially helpful with paddlers who can’t generate as much force on the paddle stroke. Lower mass means it takes less force to get it going to top speed. This is a double-edged sword though because the lower mass of the boat also means you have reduced momentum so if you are hitting big waves, you’re going to hit them with less force.

That leads to the final point of weight that it is super nimble and turns relatively fast this will allow you to make quick last-minute moves to avoiding the things that will end up crushing you because you don’t have the mass to push through them.

With the Lance you are getting a solid play boat with great performance characteristics and one of the lightest rafts on the market. Durability is good and the boat is a joy to paddle. Would I buy one? Any day of the week, you should have one of these in your fleet. Again, small kids, totally worth it. Aggressive play boating, absolutely worth it!

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