AIRE Lion 18' Cataraft Tubes

AIRE Lion 18. These are the highest capacity cataraft tubes available without getting into one of the huge Grand Canyon sized 22' snouth rigs. They are special order with a roughly four month lead time - call us to check specifics.
The price includes UPS to the lower 48 states. Our cart will try to charge UPS, but we will deduct that before capturing your funds. These are the only tubes AIRE makes that have three air chambers per side. Although our Rocky Mountain cat tubes also have three per side, their largest stock tube is 16'

The price is for the tubes ONLY, not the frame or oars.

This tube is made for those who need super high weight capacity - they will hold over a ton - and they also will draft less than any other tube we carry, for those who negotiate shallow sections frequently. That said, the Lion 18 is hardly a "low water" boat. If you are lucky enough to do the Canyon or the Middle Fork Salmon at high flows on a semi-regular basis, this and the Leopard are your best bets. The main difference between this model and the Leopard, aside from the previously mentioned extra inch of diameter and extra air chamber per side, is the waterline. Waterline is the length of hull that actually sits in the water with an average load. The Lion tubes are flatter on top and have their upward curves transitioning closer to the ends than the Leopard, so they have about two feet more of each tube sitting on the river. It is this, more than the slight difference in tube diameter, that gives the big Lion 35% more capacity than the Leopard - not that the Leopard is any slouch either.

Where are these not appropriate? Well, if your trips are mostly run with light loads on rivers with many of grabby holes, you can expect to get surfed a lot on any big diameter cat, and the extra large girth of the Lion tubes would exacerbate the problem even further. Load them down or you get stopped like a bobber. There is a lot more information on the Lion series in the write-up's for the 14' and 16' size in this section of the site.

A pair of Lion 18' tubes weigh in at 110 pounds, and can handle frames almost thirteen feet long.

All AIRE catarafts come with replaceable lift handles. The Lion 18 has either ten or twelve D-rings per tube; so far we haven't actually pulled a pair of these to count and we've had conflicting information. The other thing that is important to note is that Lion tubes have not, up to now anyway, had the gray frame chafers that are found on all other AIRE cats. If that changes we will let you know.

AIRE keeps very few Lions of any length on the shelf, and almost never has the 18' size. Most of the time this means about a five to six week lead time. On the rare occasions AIRE does have these on the shelf, they are most often red, blue, or green.