Water generosity and the 3L Vecto

Before the 3L Vecto was available to the public, Nick Ferry was invited to give it a try. He rigged up two innovative methods of using the 3L Vecto during his two testing trips. One was to turn his 3L Vecto into a shower, the other was to use a trowel to guide water from a very low stream into the wide-mouth opening.

Nick's impressions

I took the 3L Vecto on two backpacking trips, totaling 15 days. My first impression was how durable the Vecto is. There was a stretch of the trail where I wasn't sure there would be water, so I filled up the Vecto and shoved it in my pack. I was worried that the Vecto would tear or be punctured on some of my gear, but that was not the case. Another great feature is how adaptive it is to screw on many products. I was able to screw on my water purifier and filter water directly from the Vecto instead of the filter bags. The filter bags are rigid and often hard to fill, the Vecto on the other hand is not. It filled easily and was much easier to squeeze through the purifier.

I spent 4 days backpacking in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park from July 27th to July 30th. This was the first trip I took with my Vecto that had huge changes in elevation. I should have known not to fill the Vecto completely full when going down and up the mountains. Because of this, the Vecto felt the pressure and at times almost seemed like it was going to pop. The simple solution to this is not to fill it up completely. The Vecto came in handy nearly everyday. It was my primary water storage at camp and on the trail. Perhaps the time the Vecto came in handy the most is when I ran into a group of teenage boys on the trail that didn't bring water with them. I found a small stream and rigged my trowel up to the Vecto to get a good stream of water in the bladder. I then hooked my sawyer squeeze to the bladder and let them drink out of it. They said it was a life saver and I believe them because it was about 5 miles back to the parking lot.

Nick's innovation

Nick had two great improvisations with his Vecto, one to make filling better and one to make the Vecto into a shower, here how:

• Vecto shower: this is a very simple trick - take a bottle cap and make a series of holes in it using a small nail. When the Vecto is full, screw on your improvised shower head and hang from a tree. Great for feet clean up too!
• Filling the Vecto in shallow streams: Lay your Vecto flat and stick your trowel inside, with the handle facing the small stream, this will help "direct" the water in.

Nick needn't have worried about the Vecto popping in the pressure changes. The Vecto has a breaking point of 220lbs and is made of extremely flexible TPU.