inflated it in his family room after removing it from the soft pack valise and cutting open the vacuum bag. We had to do a lot of clean up from the water damage and battery acid as the manufacturer packed some foam rubber around the valve. The water and acid attacked the foam rubber and caused it to turn into some kind of a muck that had to be removed. The valve and tank appeared to be KO so we weighed it and called it good. We thought about inflating it with a pump but decided against it because I didn't want damp air in the chambers and I didn't have any way to fill it with dry air. Next time I will repack it on a dry day and inflated it with a foot pump. We inspected all of the seams and fabric and it checked out good. We then returned all of the other gear with the exception of the water and batteries back into the bag that was provided and placed it into the deflated raft. We took a vacuum cleaner and held it over the valve and sucked all of the air out. We then rolled it up in the reverse manner from which we had unrolled it and put it into the valise. We thought about using some cargo ratchet straps to pull it in tight but didn't need them. We just used the original string that we had removed when we unpacked it and laced it up tight. I had to get it back close to the original size because it had it fit back into the locker and I had very little extra room. We're talking only an extra inch in width so we got it back pretty close with just the valise line provided. It was only a couple of hours work. Next time I'm going to inflate it and leave it sit a couple of days and then re-pack it.