Joel,
When I see boats like this, I'm reminded of the ones made on a stick frame of 1/4" sticks and covered with Mylar. They are a see-through boat, often shown with a guy standing on a clean, sandy beach with the boat held overhead. Text often reads something like, "15 lbs" or some such number.
My first thought is that, if I paddled only easy waters with much easier beaches for launch and recovery operations, and that if I had a thick pad in the bottom of the boat, then it may be useful for fleeing an advancing enemy.
But I'd be really hesitant to toss in a pack or four for a trip into the outback where sharp rocks live and hide. This granite that you and I paddle around in, sometimes punctuated with small bodies of water, would eat these things alive. I suspect that sunken logs with sharp branches sticking up would gut these craft in a similar manner.
As a curiosity item, they rank high. As a useful craft, I don't see them as viable in the least. But then, I never thought that man was intended to fly, either. And, I told that to Orville and Wilbur too. They didn't listen.
