Hi all, brand new TI owner and first time poster!
I plan on taking my TI on long camping trips and have been doing a lot of research on shelter. I really like the idea of being able to choose to camp offshore or onshore depending on conditions and lay of the land. I've looked at quite a lot of the ideas presented on the forums here, but none of them feel right for me. I want something that doesn't get in the way, is easy to setup, rugged, and doesn't require a ton of modifications to the hull or akas. I'm also not a huge fan of cots and don't want to be setting up tents in a rainstorm.
I've always liked the idea of a hardshell car top camper (very sturdy, easy to setup, waterproof, etc) like the ones at
http://www.jamesbaroudusa.com/, but I'm not sure they are right for the TI. First of all they expensive ($2K+) and quite large and heavy. So I thought, how could you make a one-person super-light version of one? And that's when I thought of Yakima...
I started looking at their car top cargo boxes and realized that they could comfortably fit a person. For example, the Skybox 16
https://www.yakima.com/skybox-16-carbonite is nearly 7 feet long and 3 feet wide. After sleeping on the idea overnight, this is what I came up with:
Thoughts:
- Price of the Yakima box is only $529. Sure it's more expensive than a tent, but it's not $2K+.
- Seems like it could be fairly weatherproof. Worse comes to worst you could theoretically completely enclose yourself in it in a heavy downpour (assuming you didn't have claustrophobia and made sure there was no way you could lock yourself in). Maybe even good protection against bears?
- Setup should only take a few seconds.
- It's light enough at 47 lbs where I think you could easily detach it and bring on shore when you wanted to be on solid ground. There may even be a way to make it work with a beach dolly.
- Doubles as a sturdy 16 cubic foot storage container!
- I like the idea of being able to slide it on some sort of rail system between the front and rear cockpits for when you want to distribute the weight differently. You could also easily mount it on the akas as well— put one on each if you have two people.
- Also seems like a great place to mount a solar panel...
Concerns/Questions:
- Would you be able to right it in a capsizing situation?
- Is 47 lbs too heavy?
Anyway, I'm very seriously considering building one of these things. What do you think? Stupid idea or not half-bad? Does a one person hard-shell tent already exist? Any thoughts on how we could make it better?
Thanks in advance!