This is the Kamaran Kayak, it’s a relatively new portable kayak design that comes in much lighter than most, and also offers the advantage of being very stable in the water due to its catamaran-layout.
There are both one and two-seat versions of the Kamaran available, and owners have said that the biggest problem they face when using them is talking to all the people who come over to ask what it is, and where they can get one.
This is the Kamaran Kayak, it’s a relatively new portable kayak design that comes in much lighter than most, and also offers the advantage of being very stable in the water due to its catamaran-layout.
History Speedrun: Kamarán
Kamarán is a small family-run boatbuilder based in Roldán, a small city about 15 miles (25 kms) west of Rosario in Argentina’s Santa Fe province, on the Paraná River. Its founder, Walter Sidler, is an industrial engineer born in Rosario, he’s also a lifelong paddler.
The company was originally founded because, after moving from Rosario to Roldán, Sidler found that hauling his fiberglass kayak by car to the banks of the Paraná River was a genuine nuisance, and the overcrowded boat-storage facilities in the area made keeping a hardshell near the water completely impractical. He began sketching a design for a fully packable kayak in late 2021, and tested the first prototype on a lake near his home.
Kamarán remains a family operation – Sidler’s father, Carlos, works alongside him on the production line, while his wife, María de los Ángeles López, handles the assembly of the PVC material. A first employee was added as monthly output climbed to around 20 units, and in December of 2024 the company opened a 100 m² factory in Roldán.
The design has collected an unusual haul of awards hardware for a startup this size – Argentina’s national INNOVAR industrial design prize in 2022, the Industrial/Product Design Award at the 2024 Bienal Iberoamericana de Diseño in Madrid, and Sport Gear Design of the Year at the 2025 FIT Sport Design Awards in Switzerland.
The Kamarán Kayak
The Kamarán is an inflatable kayak built using a catamaran layout for improved stability. Two parallel PVC pontoons run 11.5 feet (3.5 m) bow to stern, and the assembled kayak measures in at 35 inches (90 cms) across. The center is completely open with no cockpit tub, nowhere for water to pool. The paddler sits in a sling between the hulls rather than inside one, so entry is a simple matter of stepping between the pontoons and sitting down.
The width of the Kamarán does exactly what it was designed to do – it almost completely eliminates that lateral wobble that makes narrow kayaks intimidating for beginners and awkward as fishing platforms. The trade-off is honest is that the width gives up some outright speed – in exchange for that improved stability.
The single-seat Kamarán weighs in at 15.4 lbs (7 kgs) fully-assembled – roughly half the weight of a typical inflatable stand-up paddleboard. It carries a maximum load of 243 lbs (110 kgs), breaks down into a backpack measuring 35 × 16 × 8 inches (90 × 40 × 20 cms), and assembles in about four minutes with no tools -you just inflate the hulls, slot the aluminum crossbars, and clip in the seat.
Construction is reinforced-PVC pontoons with an aluminum-tube structure and built-in folding keels, each kayak ships with a repair kit, nautical whistle, mooring line, and backpack straps. A useful safety detail – each hull inflates independently, so a puncture in one still leaves a functioning float to limp ashore on and the whole kit doesn’t end up paying a visiting SpongeBob Squarepants’ front yard.
The single-seat Kamarán weighs in at 15.4 lbs (7 kgs) fully-assembled – roughly half the weight of a typical inflatable stand-up paddleboard. It carries a maximum load of 243 lbs (110 kgs), breaks down into a backpack measuring 35 × 16 × 8 inches (90 × 40 × 20 cms).
During development process, prototypes were tested by strapping the pack to a bicycle and riding to launch points on the Paraná river that a car couldn’t reach. A two-seat version has now joined the range – it’s 15.7 feet (4.8 m) long, 22 lbs (10 kgs), and rated for 441 lbs (200 kgs).
The Kamarán Kayak is now available to buy direct from Kamarán here.
Images supplied by Kamarán
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
