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Cost: $139.95 (discontinued)
Capacity: 33 liters
Dimensions: 21.7” x 15” x 9.1” (55 x 38 x 23 cm)
Style: Clamshell
Weight: 1.93 lbs (875 g)
Laptop: 15.4” (Adjustable)
Materials: 210D high-tenacity nylon;TPU lamination; YKK zippers
Origin: Made in Vietnam
MEC Vapour Overnighter
When I first took the Vapour overnighter out of the box, I was a little taken aback by the bright blue color, and the stiff fabric, and I admit, it is extremely blue. But after hiking around with this bag over the weekend, I was impressed by how comfortable it is for being such a lightweight pack.
Materials
There’s a spectrum of waterproofness, on one end water resistant with DWR coating. On the other end, completely submersible 100% waterproof pack. And while I wouldn’t say you could go swimming with this pack, it’s virtually 100% water proof.
It’s made from a shiny 210 Denier high-tenacity nylon, with a waterproof TPU laminate. With fully taped sealed seams, the fabric is thick and crinkly, feels like Patagonia Black Hole fabric, but quite a bit thinner.
I think it’s impressive that MEC managed to make such a large bag completely waterproof, and still keep the weight under 2 lbs. Part of the way they do this is by not having any inner lining material. Most bags have a thinner nylon sewn inside the pack. This helps make the inside of the pack look nice, hides the seams, allowing them to sandwich in some foam padding if they want.
But this bag throws that whole idea out the window. Open the pack, there’s no lining, all the seams are just flapping in the breeze You would think that this pack would be floppy, BUT, even with nothing in the bag, it holds it shape pretty well.
Zippers and Hardware
To add the almost complete water proofness of the Vapour Overnighter, they useWater resistant, YKK zippers. There are only two zippers on the outside of this pack, the main compartment, and a top slash pocket.
The laptop compartment and most of the organization is on the inside, and these nice, Large #8 YKK on the exterior pockets, and smaller #5’s on the inside. And all of them, even the small interior zippers have these great zipper pulls. Thin nylon webbing, with a think heat shrink tubing makes these really thick, really sturdy. And as a bonus, they included a reflective tape on the zipper pulls and two exterior lash loops.
As far as the Hardware goes, there are only two adjustors on the backpack straps. They’re small, but solid brand-name Duraflex.
External Components
Because this is a minimilast pack, there is very little going on the outside of this pack. There’s no external water bottle pocket, no compression straps, no large organizational compartment, and just one top grab handle. It’s pretty much just the backpack straps, and one top slash pocket,
One of the weird things about this pack, there’s no interior liner, so putting your hand in this pocket feels like the inside of a rubber glove, it’s smooth, but kind of sticky, it feels weird.
This pocket isn’t huge, you can see where it’s sewn into the inside, few small items, notebook, phone, sunglasses, that kind of stuff.
Carry Options
Shoulder Straps
If there was one thing about this pack that I would change, it would be the backpack straps. Because this is such a small lightweight pack, they’re surprisingly comfortable for how thin they are. I carried this thing around fully loaded with travel gear, and it’s decently comfortable. However, you are missing out on some features, like top load adjustors, a sternum strap, and a hip belt.
The straps are moderatley wide around the shoulders, made from a firm foam padding with a thin fabric liner, same material as on the back panel.
And it’s easy to show you the backing, because there’s no liner, this is just that fabric on the side, the only structure on the pack is the thin firm foam on the back., but you need to be careful about how you pack it, if you put your clothes in this compartment, you’re going to have a much more comfortable padded carry.
Interior Design and Organization
Except for that one small external slash pocket, almost all of the organization on this pack in on the interior. It has a large clamshell style opening, lays open completely flat like a suitcase, two large main compartments, both about the same size, separated with zippered dividers, act like internal packing cubes.
The mesh separator has two large zippered pockets, the other side is where the laptop compartment is located, and on the back side, are two more large zippered pockets.
This pack reminds me of kind of a minimalist version of the the Cotopaxi Allpa, same waterproof exterior fabric, similar clamshell style opening, and interior organization, however, the Vapour Overnighter, is significantly cheaper, and about half the weight, larger volume for the size, more waterproof, but the Allpa has better backpack straps.
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