WHITEWATER RAFTS

Whitewater inflatable rafts, catarafts, rowing frames, oars, and rafting accessories from AIRE, Hyside, Maxxon, Tributary, NRS, Incept, Carlisle, and our own footcones & Boat People specialty items are found in this section. .

We try to offer the best values, which is why many of the inflatable rafts in this part of our website are from AIRE & Tributary, which is AIRE's import line. We were the first AIRE dealer in California and we knew AIRE's owners long before the company existed. Greg Ramp, AIRE's prez & chief boat designer, used to make inflatable kayaks out of his detached garage in Grants Pass, Oregon way back in the eighties. They were some of the best i.k's you could buy at that time. From there he moved to Idaho to work for Maravia Corp, continuing to develop his ideas and setting up the huge "urethane encapsulation" spray booth they use to this day. A couple years later he co-formed AIRE with Kris Walker, and Alan Hamilton who we knew from his days as NRS's manager. Kris has since left AIRE to work on his high performance marine cat designs.

For us and for our customers, it's very important that the crew at AIRE are easy to work with. It is even more important that they are impeccably honest people who always cover their products just like they say they will. (Photo below: San Francisco Chronical outdoor sports writer Paul McHugh in red helmet captains a dual saddle-pair paddle cat thru Ned's Gulch on the Merced River outside Yosemite National Park)

AIRE is the only inflatable raft builder out there offering not only a ten year warranty, but coverage for damage you do to your boat as well for that ten year period. Most of the other boat builders claiming ten or twelve year guarantees may only cover the hull material for that period, or have exclusions that make the warranty far less impressive than at first glance.

AIRE's warranty works like this: If there is any problem that is "AIRE's fault", you pay the shipping charges to them and they cover the return freight. If the problem is "your fault", you pay shipping both ways as you would with just about any other brand. Why cover your damage too? AIRE would rather fix the boat properly with their welders than having one of their products looking awful due to a mickey-mouse repair job, and it's also simply part of their service policy.

AIRE's whitewater rafts tend to be in line with, or cheaper than, the majority of other brands price-wise, and their newer line of imported Tributary's truly offer the best value around today. They are great performing rafts with no glue used in their construction, unlike similiarly priced Korean pvc rafts. When you purchase a raft you are really paying for two key things; quality - specifically how long the product will last and what it will cost per year to own, and handling. A"good handling" raft or inflatable kayak will be responsive through a wide variety of river conditions.

AIRE's line of whitewater rafts are extremely well designed from a hydrodynamic standpoint, and they self-bail as fast or faster than any other brand. Some brands that a few elitists insist are better handling may in fact take longer to drain, effectively making them slower to respond since they might be carrying 6" of water in continuous rapids.

What about quality? In the simplest terms, quality really boils down to how long the boat will last, or how long you can maintain it in functional condition. With AIRE's internal bladder design there is nothing that can permanently disable one of their rafts. If a couple main tube bladders start developing pinholes after say, 15 years, you can replace them for around $300 to $350, or one tenth of the boat's value. The outer hull of an AIRE could in fact be nearly worn down to the base fabric all over and the raft will still hold air just fine. On the other hand, if a non-bladderized pvc boat becomes leaky at every crease, or a hypalon raft accumulates so many patches it won't hold air for two hours, or you simply feel that your old Avon isn't safe to use anymore since every bulkhead is blown, what do you do? Boat sealants may help with some of these problems, but it's not a long term solution, and if your raft needs multiple, expensive repairs and is only worth $700, do you pay a repairman another $700? In most cases the boat either ends up fetching next to nothing at a garage sale or taking up space in a landfill. There is no reason an AIRE boat can't go 30, even 40 years with upkeep, a lifespan matched only by Demaree Inflatable's heavy, expensive mil spec neoprene boats. And for the same reason an AIRE can be made to last forever, it is also the most easily serviced in the field if something should go wrong. With all these considerations we don't feel there is a better whitewater raft than an AIRE or Tributary at any price.

For information about multiple boat discounts, and discounts on accessories that are purchased with your boat, please see the F.A.Q. page of our website. See main Whitewater Raft page for info on UPS & freight rates for rafts.