« Keen Redmond – Well Rounded Rugged Shoe | Main | Blackhead Range – New York »
Hobie Mirage i9s – Inflatable Kayak with Pedal Penguin Flippers (Mirage Drive)
By Editor | May 29, 2010
Hobie makes some pretty amazing recreational water crafts. The Hobie Mirage i9s is a pedal / paddle hybrid PVC hulled inflatable kayak. The great thing about the Hobie is that it only takes 10 minutes to set up, that includes unpacking it from its wheeled luggage like square case and inflating it.
Is the Hobie Mirage i9s a high performance kayak? The answer here is no… it is more meant for person, who just want to kayak in a lake, or beach side or for the fishermens out there. It is definitely not meant for whitewater or way out in the ocean type excursions.
The Hobie Mirage i9s is a stable kayak and it trolls well and true (straight), it is also an easy to turn kayak. If you get tired of paddling, you can lock your paddles on the included paddle stays, and place your feet a the bicycle like peddles and start peddling. This will start driving the Hobie patented penguin like flippers on the bottom of the kayak which really propels this kayak along. You can steer the Hobie kayak with a hand operated joystick like thing on the side to operate the rudder in the back, pretty cool.
There is plenty of storage area in the back for a backpack, the bungee cords included will help keep things in place, up front the storage area is a little smaller though. The side of the Hobie i9s inflatable kayak features two grab handles which assist in transporting the kayak out of the water. Also included with the whole package are collapsible paddles and a manual step / hand pump.
One great thing about the Hobie Kayaks though is the multitude of accessories that you can buy for it. You can get snap on sail, fishing rod holder and extensions to make your Hobie kayak into a tri-maran.
Length: 9 feet Weight: 46 lbs
Price: $ 1500
StumbleUpon | Digg | Del.icio.us | Dzone | Newsvine | Spurl | Simpy | Furl | Reddit | Yahoo! MyWeb
Topics: Canoes, Rafts and Boats, Equipment, Outdoor Gear Reviews | 1 Comment »
The nice thing about the Hobie i9s is that it folds up small enough that I can take it on my sail boat and use it for small excursions.