The New Malu is reminiscent of the Alpacka Valyrie V3. However, at present it is a self bailing kayak, with hones of rocker and small tubes.  Its easily rolled, making it a great boat for larger volume kayak trips where you don’t want to carry your heavy plastic kayak. The self baling makes it easy to take anywhere as you don’t need the extras to attach a spraydeck, and also save the weight.

The Malu surfs well in holes, but is easily directed when you learn how to paddle it. The drop floor sits about 10cm below the outside of the tubes, so the rocker on this boat is more pronounce, but this also means that you need to  be very directional and pro-active in your paddling style.

It’s a great kayak for all the fun stuff, but will be slightly heavier to carry any distance, with the extras on the floor meaning it weighs in at about 600g more than normal style pack-rafts. The design more than makes up for any increase in weight.

The other materials and outfitting are of the same calibre as the rest of the latitude rafts and mean that this is almost the perfect pack raft for die-hard kayakers dreaming of wilderness journeys.

Comes with a Tzip and all the goodies, ready to go

Price is still relatively low compared with other pack rafts of this nature.

Value ****

Design *****

Whitewater suitability *****

Stability ***