As a professional sailor, I carry quite a lot of stuff with me from one boat to another. I could write an entire blog post just on that and I will, I promise. The biggest problem I face is that on some boats I sleep with my bag and thus don’t want my nice hard plastic, four-wheeled luggage in my bed with me. With a tight budget, I used Google to help me find what I needed and I narrowed my findings to the TYTN 90L Duffel to carry my gear.
The Features
Let’s be honest, a duffel bag is essentially a big hole to stuff things in and it’s exactly what I was looking for. This bag does come with a couple of extras, though. It has some cinching straps that can keep everything nice and tight to your bag while you use the backpack straps and it also has the standard straps and handles most duffels have. My favourite feature is the shoe compartment that I also use for dirty laundry to keep it separated from my clean clothes and tools.
Where to buy?
The only place I have managed to find this bag is on Amazon. The company website seems to be in construction for the past months I have been carrying this bag around. I bought it while in England in blue, as the quantity of gear I picked up meant I couldn’t travel with only a carry on. It cost me about 50£ and on Amazon France it is currently going for about 75€.
Would I buy it again?
The short answer is no. Sadly, within a couple of uses, one of the zipper pulls broke. Without any plastic ties on hand, it meant not being able to use one of the zippers. Packing it and cinching it regularly meant that the stitching along the zipper is slowly stretching and will soon burst. With my luck, probably in the cargo hold of a plane and I will lose most of my things.
For anyone looking for a cheap, very little use duffel, it’s great! My first impressions were good and for the price you can’t go wrong. I am just realizing that throwing a bag from plane to boat and back while also putting it in a dinghy and into taxis, this bag isn’t the best of choices for what I do. I was also deceived that not only does the bag have 4 stars on Amazon but Mountain iQ gives it a great review and only mentions that the backpack straps are uncomfortable.