Tips and tricks to pack an inflatable

Packing an inflatable dingy back into it storage bag can be problematic at best. As you lie spreadeagled across the tubes trying to squash the last bits of air out, you know it came out of that bag… so it must go back in again. Why don’t they make bigger bags? There must be an easier way, surely.

Well actually there is. A retired sailor who was selling me his old Avon Redcrest showed me how. We’d inflated it to check it out and when I’d deflated it and thought I was ready to pack it he told me to wait a second. He went out to his shed and brought back an old car battery and a 12V inflater pump.

Swapping the adapter on the pump, he put the inlet end on the dinghy tube valve and pressed the trigger. In a few seconds out came the rest of the air which made it much more compact and easier to get the boat back into the bag. It was that simple.

I thought I must have been the last person on Earth to learn about that trick, but apparently not. I’ve seen other people struggling trying to repack inflatables, sometimes having used an electric pump to inflate it in the first place and not realising it can be simply switched to deflate mode too.

1 A small 12V pump makes packing up far easier. Simply swap over the air in/air out nozzle on the pump, place the intake end on the dinghy valve to suck the air out of each chamber in turn.

2 This is what the Redstart looks like with the air sucked out and rolled. Getting the rolled inflatable into its storage bag is the next problem – it gets contorted and jams up when you are trying to slide it into the bag. The answer to that is a primary valise-type bag to keep the package tighter for feeding in to the original bag.

3 Pulled up tight, the straps around the valise, along with the drawstring ends, hold the folded dinghy in a compact shape.

4 The original, exterior bag can now be pulled up over the valise without too much bother. Valise bags can be found on eBay and at boat jumbles.

5 Here’s the finished package which measures around 70x50x40cm. The double bagging has the added advantage offering extra protection when stowed.