After all that lot I sold my Yak and bought a non-decked, two-colour Yak in a sale. Looks like the Americans have got over all that, if it ever existed here. What you see — a steep, boulder-chocked gully where you want to take care — is what you get. Getting down and back up from the lake wore me out for a day, but what was I complaining about? In Mormon pioneers spent six weeks here lowering two dozen wagons to get across what was then the Colorado river read right to get to a new settlement on the far side.
But deflating the backrest from full gave my legs more room and I actually found that both feet placed flat on the floor below the bulge of the side tubes worked fine right image above right , just not so sure if this is so intuitive for brace control. In the picture left the new Yak and Llama fronts seem near identical in interior front width.
Sat against the back I could never reach the front to brace which is why I got the Yak. Also, the UDB on the new Yak may have constricted my feet a bit that day. Got all that? The new Yellow Yak is nominally 4 inches shorter inside than an old Llama. Other than that it feels much like the old Llama. I did have my part-filled UDB strapped to the front where any weight tends to reduce yawing anyway. It was the first time I used the UDB on the water and have to admit the added guarantee of its girth and buoyancy was reassuring should a Colorado river barracuda make a bite at my Yak.
As anticipated, the new 2-part seat is a real improvement. Like on my Llama, I just clipped the seat base onto the hull tabs with a single snaplink each side inset, left rather than mess about with the string they supply.
So, bottom line, not a huge difference in operation apart from less yawing which was never that bad anyway once you compensated for it. The zip-off skirt is a nice idea; one less thing to unroll and dry after. There was a discussion on BackpackingLight about the new shape and here Roman D gives his opinion for a harder core of white water utility.
