Summer, holiday, time for trips into nature. It is time to pack your stuff and go where you have never been. If this year you have decided to go kayaking, it may turn out that you will have to take it with you. If you are going to a river which is only 100 or 200 km away, a trailer or a roof rack will be enough. But what to do when you have chosen a location hundreds or thousands of kilometers away and you do not want to go there by car? Can your problem be solved by a courier parcel?
Sending a kayak in a package may seem a bit frivolous at first. However, it really is the easiest way to have a chance to use your own kayak anywhere in the world – on any mountain river you can dream of. Especially, in places where you cannot rent this kind of equipment.
The kayak travels in a package, the canoeist travels by plane
First of all you have to measure your kayak carefully taking into account the layers of packaging you intend to apply. This is an extremely important matter, because you have to know the external dimensions of the equipment to be able to check whether shipping it will be possible at all.
Before anything, you can do some initial research to check which couriers accept long parcels. You should also ask them whether the kayak should be packed in a standard box. However, even if the courier does not require the use of such packaging, you may use it to make your measurements and the packaging process much easier. When you are checking whether your package will fulfil the criteria of a long parcel, you cannot take into account only the maximum length – most often it is restricted also by the sum of the length, height and width of the package, which in total cannot exceed a certain limit.
After you finish your measurements, it is worth contacting the selected courier companies and confirming your arrangements. If the kayak is less than 300 cm long, it can almost certainly be shipped. If it is longer, you should definitely consult the courier company. It may turn out that you will have to use a smaller specialist carrier.
At the same time, you may buy a plane ticket and book accommodation. You should notify the reception at your accommodation that a parcel will arrive in your name. Only after you have completed all formalities related to the trip, can you start packing.
How to pack a kayak for a courier?
A kayak is a type of lightweight shell that must be protected against any mechanical damage resulting from impact, pressure or crushing of the package during transport. You can fill the spaces inside the kayak with your clothes, hammock, ropes and other light and soft items that will not affect the overall weight of the package. Inside the kayak, you can also place any external elements like, for example, a folding paddle.
All remaining void spaces should be filled with foam granules, airbags or crushed paper. A kayak prepared in this way should then be wrapped with bubble wrap and finished with packing tape. A double layer should be applied to all protruding parts. You should use more than one layer of foil but still bear in mind the maximum size of the box in which the kayak must fit.
Of course, it will be difficult to find the right box. However, you can deal with this problem by gluing some smaller boxes together. After placing the kayak in a cardboard box, it is best to cover it with granulated filler. Then you should seal the box with tape making a few loops around it and at least one along the box. It is also a good idea to secure the corners of the packaging with tape. Then you can deliver the prepared package to the courier.
Kayak in a package not only for holidays
A holiday trip is the most obvious, but not the only reason to send your kayak by courier. The packaging procedure described above may turn out very useful if you are buying a second-hand kayak that needs to be transported over a long distance. In such circumstances, transport by your own car could turn out to be much more expensive than the equipment itself. There may still be other situations in which you want to ship a kayak by courier. You may be moving or you may want to send kayak as a surprise gift for a birthday or an important anniversary. In all of these cases, it is always worth trying to ship it by courier. And if it turns out that it is impossible, then … you can always look for an inflatable kayak. This equipment can certainly be sent by courier.
EN
PL