Hobie i11s & hooks

So I've been fishing off my i11s for several months now & thought I'd report back about the assumed perceptions about it's sturdiness vs reality. I've managed to puncture the right side chamber twice now. This is the side I always fish from and my hooks make contact with.

The repair kit instructions state to put one drop of the supplied glue on any hole 1/8" or less and let dry. Both of my holes were tiny pin pricks and the glue works great in completely sealing them up. The first hole was from a 8/0-4oz swimbait leadhead & I'm not sure about the second one might have been a 2/0 circle hook.

 Both holes resulted in very slow air leaks where by the end of the fishing day you could see that chamber was low. If you sprayed the area with soapy water or windex you could see the tiniest of bubbles coming from the puncture.

So there you have it. Not the catastrophic hull failures that some assumed would happen but definitely there's a trade off between the low weight & portability of this material vs the sturdiness of a regular polyethylene hull.

Since both of my punctures were within a few inches of each other my long term plan is to add another layer of matching material over this small area. Maybe a 6" by 2 feet strip.  I believe one additional layer of thickness would end any further leaks and let me continue to enjoy this super fun feather weight craft. 
That being said I'm still glad I didn't try and hoist that thresher shark aboard when I had the chance recently. 

Good info, thanks for sharing Salty. A buddy of mine has been looking to get an inflatable kayak and of course the stigma of punctures caused by hooks and spiny fish come to mind. I look forward to hearing how the added layer helps.

thanks for the post, I've been curious about this myself.

This happened a few months ago, first time landing some spiny fish and got spined, @18:45

https://youtu.be/g2j-sSatVAo?t=1125

Got these rubber car mats, cut out a hole for the mirage drive...and so far, so good:





Now I've added a second mat on the right, velcroed them slightly overlapping so I have a "runner" going over the edge of the right chamber...in case I'm lucky enough to catch something big and have to drag it on deck!

This happened a few months ago, first time landing some spiny fish and got spined, @18:45

https://youtu.be/g2j-sSatVAo?t=1125

Got these rubber car mats, cut out a hole for the mirage drive...and so far, so good:





Now I've added a second mat on the right, velcroed them slightly overlapping so I have a "runner" going over the edge of the right chamber...in case I'm lucky enough to catch something big and have to drag it on deck!

that looks nice. I remember the inflatables being pretty comfortable for your feet, but that would probably improve it even more, and provide added protection and traction for a wet deck.

that looks nice. I remember the inflatables being pretty comfortable for your feet, but that would probably improve it even more, and provide added protection and traction for a wet deck.

I don't stand on the i11s, but I would imagine you'd want to secure the mat at 4 points to keep it from sliding around. As a fish-mat, no need to lash down at all. One note: find mats that don't have the sharp spikes on the bottom...I guess they're meant to bite into carpet.