Being on the water, whether you are just chilling out on the deck of a boat or fly fishing, does not immediately give you immunity from the onslaught of airborne insects and the weather. If you want to be on the water and not put yourself through the aforementioned inconvenience, then the next time you hit your local lake, take along SmithFly Shoal Tent with you. Created with the understanding that 70 percent of the Earth is covered with water and the adventurous you may not want to skip camping when you stumble upon a waterbody, the Shoal Tent is essentially an inflatable raft with a tent as a topper, so you can sleep on water. Now, that, my folks, is a real waterbed!
To make your cozying up inside Shoal Tent a comfortable and hassle-free experience, this waterborne tent features a raft body with three air chambers – two in the lower tube and one in the structure, so there are no poles that could risk piercing your life-saving raft and also makes it an ease to put up. SmithFly also claims that despite it not having poles, it is totally capable of standing to high winds. Though it did not mention the wind load in numbers. It has a 6-inch (about 15 cm) thick drop stitched, high-pressure floor that doubles as an air mattress for a good night rest and the topper, AKA the tent, is of heavy duty, waterproof fabric that comes with heavy duty zippers for closure.
Speaking of the topper, it is attached to the raft on all sides with heavy duty hook and loop, so it can be removed to be used on land if desire, or simply to provide ingress and egress through any side of your choosing. The entire set up is pretty large, coming in at 8 by 8 feet (2.4 by 2.4 meters) with an interior for people of height of up to 6’ 3” (190.5 cm) and it has a standing room of 6 feet 3, in the middle, obviously. Good to know, but really, you are not going to stand up straight in this thing. From my experience, crawling around is the most common motion in most tents, on water or not.
Finally, Shoal Tent can be packed down into a burrito roll-style carry, inside a storage bag of size 60 by 24 x 18 inches (152 x 61 x 46 cm), for easy of transportation. It is not exactly featherweight though. The package weighs in at quite a meaty 75 lbs (34 kilograms). But I think it will be worth the heft if water is standing in your way of an awesome outdoor adventure.
For a grand price of $1,499, you will get the Shoal Tent with the aforementioned storage bag, along with a patch kit and a manual foot pump.
Images: SmithFly.
