Folding Kayaks Forum

Greetings. I have bought (cheap) a Taimen3 for use around the Tamar/Plymouth Sound area. It works fine as long as you expect it to drive like an old Bentley rather than an old Bugatti. A problem I have is that it needs brutal treatment to set and install the coaming and I haven't yet got both the bow and stern deckings over their top button. Sometimes one, sometimes another. I'm awaiting a spraydeck and will be glueing deck line mounts to the hull. Any guides on easier assembly? Takes me about 30 minutes single handed plus fitting the rudder. How do you fix it down? the keyhole seem back to front to me. It's a tank of a kayak but I love seing the length of it bending with the waves as they roll underneath. What it really needs is 2 or 3 fit young Russian soldiers (my daughter seems to agree!) to fit it together. From my limited military experience I would hate to put it together clandestinely. The tubes sound like a bad night bellringing. Another piece of advice I would be grateful for is any alternative found for those **! swivelpins that lock it together and take more time to get out than disassembling the whole thing.

Hello, we personally dont import Taimen boats, but I know there are one or two Canadaian importers, you can search for them on Yahoo using keywords such as Taimen, or russian kayak, and they might be able to help you.

Just to update. Due to an unaccountable lack of enthusiasm from the family to accompany the author (!) I have done a study and have worked out where I can shorten the frame to leave out two of the seating positions and leave one and the cargo bay (which can take a non paddling passenger) leaving me with a 12' 1 and a bit seater Taimen. This involves cutting short the bow and stern extensions, leaving out the centre ladder and cutting the other two ladders short as well. A local sailmaker says he can sew the skin together after I have cut out the middle to suit. It will not be a fast boat but, with a 32.5" beam it should carry a sail all right.

I would appreciate any advice on how much I should shorten the skin? I wonder if I should take out the same length as I have shortened the frame or a little more or less cater for any difference in the stretch over the shorterframe?

If you're planning to sail it, why don't you leave it full-length rather than hacking it up? 12 feet is a bit short, in any case. Once you hoist that sail, the family members might become enthusiastic

_________________
Chris T.
~'91 Klepper A2 w/ BSD schooner rig.
'64 Klepper Passat/Tradewind and T12 restoration projects.
Non-folding: Early '90s Old Town Canoe.
Previously owned '04 Pakboat Puffin II and '05 Swift (prototype), as well as an '84 Hobie 16.

I think, buying an old single-seater Folbot or Pouch will be much less pain (of all kinds) and not much more expensive, considering that you wouldn't have to pay a sailmaker to shorten and sew again the skin. Assembling has always been a pain with all Russian folders, AFAIK - and unless you calculate and do all your alterations very accurate, chances are that it will become even more difficult to assemble after the downsizing. Or less mechanically strong. Russian boats are not the cutting edge in design, besides, Taymen is a very old model - 25 years or more, yet some engineering brain work was invested in there.

Agreed with Chris, 17+ ft kayak is not too large for a sailboat, especially with a schooner rig.

PS: I am a bit sceptical about reports on military applications of Taymen boats, particularly due to difficult assembly. Even though those that I've seen had factory-installed hull reinforcing strips, which warrants more protection for heavily loaded hull in unknown and unpredictable shoreline. Unlike, for example, Folbot GII, which have neither hull strips, nor grab-handles, yet reportedly have also been bought by the militaries (no reports as to the further use). Don't remember, whether Taymen has grab-handles - probably, not. Apparently soldiers were carrying those boats on their shoulders, 4 at each boat, like a casket

I would suggest to leave Taimen 4,5m long as paddling boat. In a shorter boat due to pointed ends immersion will be greater. Try to keep in full length both end sections and 1m long joining middle section, front and back seat sections can be cut to 70-75cm. Make frame at first. Then cut skin in middle, put in frame, stretch skin till frame middle point. Mark skin, leave rear piece with ~15cm overlap and cut. Check some cheap "universal" glue for time you can still move one skin piece over another. Put in temporary glued skin both frame halves, carefully press down and join middle kiel. Allow skin to set in right place. Check how tight is skin lengthwise and mark line to shorten skin for 1-2cm for rubber skin, half less for PVC skin. Remove temporary gluing. Then find good glue, overlap 10cm in right direction and glue. Sewing two seams can be done manually with big needle and decent thread in glue hardening time. Skin overlap ends cover with tin 5cm width strips. Canvas deck just sew in place.

have a look at the site of the german distributor at
http://www.faltboot-deal.de
and I think they can ship to the U.S. too.

they offer taimen-3 and taimen-2
so one otion for your skin might be, just to order a taimen-2 skin, so you have two skins, and one skeleton, that fits for both (as the taimen 3 skeleton fits, if you leave the middle section out).

peter

Peter, with those prices it might be cheaper flying to Moscow and buying the whole Taymen-2 in a retail store for $500 or so. Especially from Europe. Warranty problem, though (if bought retail in Russia). Buying a few kilograms of spare parts in the same store in Moscow for another $15-20 would have eliminated most of warranty problems, I guess. I wouldn't bother at all with all that - US Folbot, despite their controversial approach to quality and "optional" gear (like keel strips or sprayskirt) is a better choice for US paddlers in many aspects, and their in- and post-warranty service is the best I have ever seen.

I never did find a way to easily assemble (or disassemble) the Tamien review boat I had for a while. I don't like to discourage the people who are trying to sell that boat here, but at the prices you have to pay for a Russian boat imported here, and the lack of after-sale support (I've seen three dealers go out of business since I started foldingkayaks.org) I wouldn't recommend them.

My 2 cents... There is sometimes confusion around "Taymen" and "Triton"; Taymen-2 and 3 is a 2-seater and 3-seater model name (don't remember the company), - very old model, I believe, the first Russian folder ever. OTH, "Triton" is the company that makes models Ladoga, Vuoksa and Svir - relatively new models that look like real things, but not always are. None of them can be considered a sea kayak, anyway.

Mostly, dealers in the USA are offering Triton product line, rather than Taymen model (which looks and is rather old model, like I said). I had a chance to see both Taymen and Triton (Ladoga-1), and if my memory doesn't fail me, Taymen-2 has fewer fragile parts than Triton models, and somewhat resembles american Folbot GII. Assembling of all these Russian boats is difficult.

The price of Taymen-2 at source is probably slightly less than Triton doubles, but after shipping, customs duties, warehousing, advertising, office and warranty expenses the wholesale price of even Taymen-2 in the USA should be more than $600, which makes unrealistic selling it for less than $900. I personally wouldn't consider buying it (or any of Triton boats) for 900 either, both because this isn't a boat that suits me, and because this is a price of a used GII in a good condition, with reliable service (and I don't need a GII either).
The boat in question was Taymen-3, bought used, and (I believe) cheap, which is a different story.

Thank you for your responses to my query. Especially Verners. I have to say the whole thing cost €200 so i can't justify spending the price of a decent second hand boat. The shortening is partly to make it easier to handle on the water single handed and partly to make it lighter. My estimate that it will weigh @2/3 and, if I cut the end pieces (pace Verners) I can reduce the packed length to fit a more suitable bag I have and be easier to take on a train. Incidentally I do have reason to believe the Taimen were used originally by the soviet military and it retains the characteristic soviet manufacturing mix of crudity and quality. For example the aluminium is of excellent quality but those swivel pins were hand made. I intend to replace the swivel pins with cotter pins (grooved for a sprung cotter kept wired to the frame). At least using the Taimen stops atheletic young sea kayak enthusiasts from telling me what I should be doing and that I should join their clubs. An excellent boat for an old codger to go pottering and the spare middle skin will be just enough to make a spraydeck as the folk at faltboat-deal don't appear to actually sell their products as I have never had a reply from them whether I write in english or german.

I have been told- though this has not been confirmed- that the Soviet military considered these one-time disposable boats. After having spent a good deal of time disassembling one, I'm tempted to believe it!

>At least using the Taimen stops atheletic young sea kayak enthusiasts from telling me what I should be doing and that I should join their clubs. An excellent boat for an old codger to go pottering and the spare middle skin will be just enough to make a spraydeck

Athletic snobs in cool-looking kayaks will definitely not encourage you to learn how to roll this Taymen ... And it's unlikely that you will ever need this - at that width it is nearly impossible to capsize. Spare piece of skin (bottom) will be useful as material for patches too. Spraydeck I would rather make out of lighter material. Hypalon or similar rubberish fabric used on Taymen bottom is too heavy for spraydeck.

Hello, one question, after many years of abstinence on this theme: Is Taimen suitable for the sea? Probably as a boat, for coastal cruising, it is, but I mean is it’s alu construction salt resist|? I am not sure, so want to hear the experiences. I own a Taimen and have been paddling it for many years but mainly on the river (Danube), never on the sea. This year I would like to take it to Greece, so do not know. I love the boat for it stability and comfort... I also have a Prijon Seayak, but that is different story, tight, packed and unstable.

There is a good discussion about the performance of aluminum in salt water:
http://foldingkayaks.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=96
...but the bottom line is that it is all about cleaning and maintaining (fresh water rinse and boeshield).

g

_________________
"There is nothing--absolutely nothing--half so much worth doing as simply messing around in boats"

1990 A1 Expedition
2010 carbon Klepper Quattro
BSD sail rig, 24' mizzen + 36' main
36' jib
Torqeedo outboard
1938 Sachs-Fichtel seitenbordmotor