- Joined
- Aug 9, 2007
- Messages
- 12,949
This site does not get nearly enough rafting on it, and starting right now, I intend to change that. Over the last several years, my outdoor recreation has become more and more water-based. So I guess it's not a huge surprise that I finally decided to pull the trigger on a whitewater raft this year. It was originally going to be a budget build, but I suck at sticking to a budget and it has since become something much more. I've been debating posting a thread on this and I've finally decided I should. As families grow and knees get worn out, floating rivers is a pretty good option for many of us, so I'm sharing my experience. This is like a trip report of my experience so far, and it will be a place for me to post the experience coming up.
First off, let me make it clear that I have no idea what I'm doing. Were it not for @mattvogt7 fielding hundreds of questions, and the great info over at mountainbuzz.com, I'd be completely lost. I've floated some rivers in kayaks, and I've spent a lot of time out on my pontoon boat, but the only time I ever set foot on a raft was a half day trip on the Colorado near Glenwood Springs on a guided paddle raft trip. I was about 13 years old. I've never even been a passenger on an oar rig.
After much research and deliberation, I decided to just go all-in. Back in May, I started ordering the things I thought I needed. I settled on purchasing an Aire 156R raft with an NRS Bighorn II frame so that I could adjust it as I figured things out. Part of financing this big purchase ended up in the liquidation of my undersized packraft (to be replaced). Fortunately, the 10-foot raft oars arrived the same day I sold it, so I had to put the two together for a photo.
While I was waiting for the raft, I picked up a cheap tilt trailer off KSL. It was 10' long and 8' wide and I figured it would get me by until I picked up something nicer. Nikita liked getting pulled down the street on it.
Well it only took a week before I realized I'd made a mistake on the trailer. I would have had to dump $400+ into it before I'd feel comfortable putting my raft on it and dragging it all over the state. So I put it back on KSL and got back exactly what I paid for it ($470). Nice knowing you, tilt trailer. Meanwhile, I still hadn't gotten a shipping confirmation for my raft from Aire. It was a Saturday, and I'd ordered it on Wednesday. No big deal, until a REALLY great opportunity popped up that basically got me the same raft for about $1400 less. The only problem was it had to be blue, not the orange that I'd ordered. I went ahead and bought it. Now I had two $5k rafts on the way to me! Fortunately, I was able to get a hold of Aire on Monday morning and cancel my order. Phew!
So with my boat in transit, I started assembling the frame on some buckets in my garage. I bought the Bighorn II frame which comes with a bunch of things like a seat and cooler hangers to make it a package deal. I felt like a kid with legos or an erector set putting it together.
But I really had no idea what I was doing! The more I fiddled with it, the more I realized I'd bought the wrong frame. I didn't want a seat. I didn't like the curved footbar. I wanted a bit more length, and I wanted it to be a bit wider. I realized I was about to take advantage of the NRS easy returns policy even though I'd totally beat this thing up in all of my fiddling. But before I could commit to returning it and ordering the right stuff, I really needed my raft. Unfortunately, it was lost.
I called Backcountry.com after a week and they basically told me to relax, it will come. Then after another week they said they'd track it down and get back to me. Nothing. Finally after a third, excruciating week, I called and said I had to know where it was. They didn't know. There was no tracking, they just knew it had shipped. They offered to give me a refund but they had no other boats in stock. And even worse, I wouldn't maintain all of the big discount I got if I did that. So I just told them to please find it and send it when they can. I'm used to Amazon Prime and instant gratification. This was tough! But then later that day, I got a call back. They'd found my raft. It was here in Salt Lake, and the next day it was delivered first thing in the morning! Game on!
I got it home and rolled it out in the garage and realized how massive it was for the first time. Time to start inflating.
The next step was lacing in the floor. That was a pain in the ass. You basically have to run rope around the entire perimeter of the floor in each direction, running it through interlocking loops in the vinyl. Not fun. But sitting in that big, empty boat afterwards felt great.
Once we got it all inflated, I laid in the original frame and confirmed my suspicions. I purchased a frame that was the minimum width for the raft, and the longest Bighorn II available, but it was not long enough to cover the chafing strips. Not a huge deal, but it wasn't lining up with how I wanted it to come together. 4 inches doesn't seem like much, but it can change a lot when it comes to how your frame gets laid out. Not to mention all the wasted expense on the items included with it like the seat. I also wanted taller oar towers since I intended to sit on a dry box or cooler.
With that information, I got online and spent another $1k+ on the right frame. This time I just bought all the parts and pieces I wanted - no kit. I wanted the frame to be 92" long so I asked NRS to do it for me. The stock size as 96". They responded saying it would be about two weeks, so I told them to just send it at 96 and I would cut it down. But low and behold, when it arrived two days later, it was exactly 92 inches long. I have been nothing but totally impressed by the customer service at NRS throughout this process, and if you know me, that says a lot. Meanwhile, I packaged up the old frame and sent it back. They paid for return shipping and gave me a 100% refund for it. I felt a bit guilty, but on the other hand, I've spent a ton of money with them over the last couple of months.
Soon enough I was putting together the new frame. I'd also picked up a Cambridge dry box from 4 Corners River Sports in Durango.
Coming together! I was originally thinking of doing a two cooler setup since there's never enough room in the cooler, but I decided to do a Down River Equipment drop bag up front instead. I also put a drop bag in a small bay behind the dry box that would become my seat.
The boards are still unfinished. In fact, they were kind of an accident. Audra bought some wood for a bed platform and we ended up with these two long planks that just happened to fit the raft frame nicely. They still need to be trimmed down, sanded and finished. And I need something to cover that front drop bag for passengers to sit on.
I also added a Cascade River Gear "boatman's briefcase" on the front of the dry box. Just a place to stick a drink, map, chap stick, etc. while paddling.
Time to finish the wood and install it. This is with all the pieces cut and sanded.
And then it was time for many, many coats of spar urethane.
Ready to install them now, but first Sage had to test them out.
Added a pad on the dry box and cargo floor to the stern. Still playing with where to put the ladder. That style of ladder is uncommon on rafts, but it's what I have on my pontoon and I'm excited to have it for easy access to mid-river soak sessions.
After all the work put into preparing the boards, it was a bit nerve-racking to finally install them. I did this Friday night around midnight. I used NRS U-bolts with some connector nuts I found online so that they would be close to flush on the board. The front seat is held on with 2' cam straps for easy access to the contents of the drop bag below. I'm really, really happy with how the U-bolts and connector nuts turned out. I only put them on the front and back cross bars so I can still adjust the other bars until I'm happy.
It's a good thing I left room to move around the other crossbars. After countless hours of researching and debating on what river toilet system to get, I decided to just use a 5-gallon bucket for the first trip in July. I was ecstatic to find that it only required moving the dry box up less than an inch to make it fit 5-gallon buckets AND 7-gallon blue water jugs!
Sage was stoked too. However that pad she is sitting on is another learning experience. I bought an Aire Landing Pad. I figured it would work for passengers to sit on and me to sleep on. But it turns out the padding in is totally inadequate and on top of that, the blue is not the same color of blue as the raft. One of the reasons I got it was because I assumed their light blues would match. And red corners... Really, Aire? It's going back next week and I'm going to order a Jack's Plastic Welding Paco Pad instead. Hopefully that does the trick.
I have a lot more to do before she gets wet for the first time on July 16th. There's a bimini on the way, and a pretty sweet custom raft trailer is getting built for me up in Idaho that I'm really hoping will be done in time for the maiden voyage. Much more to come...
First off, let me make it clear that I have no idea what I'm doing. Were it not for @mattvogt7 fielding hundreds of questions, and the great info over at mountainbuzz.com, I'd be completely lost. I've floated some rivers in kayaks, and I've spent a lot of time out on my pontoon boat, but the only time I ever set foot on a raft was a half day trip on the Colorado near Glenwood Springs on a guided paddle raft trip. I was about 13 years old. I've never even been a passenger on an oar rig.
After much research and deliberation, I decided to just go all-in. Back in May, I started ordering the things I thought I needed. I settled on purchasing an Aire 156R raft with an NRS Bighorn II frame so that I could adjust it as I figured things out. Part of financing this big purchase ended up in the liquidation of my undersized packraft (to be replaced). Fortunately, the 10-foot raft oars arrived the same day I sold it, so I had to put the two together for a photo.
While I was waiting for the raft, I picked up a cheap tilt trailer off KSL. It was 10' long and 8' wide and I figured it would get me by until I picked up something nicer. Nikita liked getting pulled down the street on it.
Well it only took a week before I realized I'd made a mistake on the trailer. I would have had to dump $400+ into it before I'd feel comfortable putting my raft on it and dragging it all over the state. So I put it back on KSL and got back exactly what I paid for it ($470). Nice knowing you, tilt trailer. Meanwhile, I still hadn't gotten a shipping confirmation for my raft from Aire. It was a Saturday, and I'd ordered it on Wednesday. No big deal, until a REALLY great opportunity popped up that basically got me the same raft for about $1400 less. The only problem was it had to be blue, not the orange that I'd ordered. I went ahead and bought it. Now I had two $5k rafts on the way to me! Fortunately, I was able to get a hold of Aire on Monday morning and cancel my order. Phew!
So with my boat in transit, I started assembling the frame on some buckets in my garage. I bought the Bighorn II frame which comes with a bunch of things like a seat and cooler hangers to make it a package deal. I felt like a kid with legos or an erector set putting it together.
But I really had no idea what I was doing! The more I fiddled with it, the more I realized I'd bought the wrong frame. I didn't want a seat. I didn't like the curved footbar. I wanted a bit more length, and I wanted it to be a bit wider. I realized I was about to take advantage of the NRS easy returns policy even though I'd totally beat this thing up in all of my fiddling. But before I could commit to returning it and ordering the right stuff, I really needed my raft. Unfortunately, it was lost.
I called Backcountry.com after a week and they basically told me to relax, it will come. Then after another week they said they'd track it down and get back to me. Nothing. Finally after a third, excruciating week, I called and said I had to know where it was. They didn't know. There was no tracking, they just knew it had shipped. They offered to give me a refund but they had no other boats in stock. And even worse, I wouldn't maintain all of the big discount I got if I did that. So I just told them to please find it and send it when they can. I'm used to Amazon Prime and instant gratification. This was tough! But then later that day, I got a call back. They'd found my raft. It was here in Salt Lake, and the next day it was delivered first thing in the morning! Game on!
I got it home and rolled it out in the garage and realized how massive it was for the first time. Time to start inflating.
The next step was lacing in the floor. That was a pain in the ass. You basically have to run rope around the entire perimeter of the floor in each direction, running it through interlocking loops in the vinyl. Not fun. But sitting in that big, empty boat afterwards felt great.
Once we got it all inflated, I laid in the original frame and confirmed my suspicions. I purchased a frame that was the minimum width for the raft, and the longest Bighorn II available, but it was not long enough to cover the chafing strips. Not a huge deal, but it wasn't lining up with how I wanted it to come together. 4 inches doesn't seem like much, but it can change a lot when it comes to how your frame gets laid out. Not to mention all the wasted expense on the items included with it like the seat. I also wanted taller oar towers since I intended to sit on a dry box or cooler.
With that information, I got online and spent another $1k+ on the right frame. This time I just bought all the parts and pieces I wanted - no kit. I wanted the frame to be 92" long so I asked NRS to do it for me. The stock size as 96". They responded saying it would be about two weeks, so I told them to just send it at 96 and I would cut it down. But low and behold, when it arrived two days later, it was exactly 92 inches long. I have been nothing but totally impressed by the customer service at NRS throughout this process, and if you know me, that says a lot. Meanwhile, I packaged up the old frame and sent it back. They paid for return shipping and gave me a 100% refund for it. I felt a bit guilty, but on the other hand, I've spent a ton of money with them over the last couple of months.
Soon enough I was putting together the new frame. I'd also picked up a Cambridge dry box from 4 Corners River Sports in Durango.
Coming together! I was originally thinking of doing a two cooler setup since there's never enough room in the cooler, but I decided to do a Down River Equipment drop bag up front instead. I also put a drop bag in a small bay behind the dry box that would become my seat.
The boards are still unfinished. In fact, they were kind of an accident. Audra bought some wood for a bed platform and we ended up with these two long planks that just happened to fit the raft frame nicely. They still need to be trimmed down, sanded and finished. And I need something to cover that front drop bag for passengers to sit on.
I also added a Cascade River Gear "boatman's briefcase" on the front of the dry box. Just a place to stick a drink, map, chap stick, etc. while paddling.
Time to finish the wood and install it. This is with all the pieces cut and sanded.
And then it was time for many, many coats of spar urethane.
Ready to install them now, but first Sage had to test them out.
Added a pad on the dry box and cargo floor to the stern. Still playing with where to put the ladder. That style of ladder is uncommon on rafts, but it's what I have on my pontoon and I'm excited to have it for easy access to mid-river soak sessions.
After all the work put into preparing the boards, it was a bit nerve-racking to finally install them. I did this Friday night around midnight. I used NRS U-bolts with some connector nuts I found online so that they would be close to flush on the board. The front seat is held on with 2' cam straps for easy access to the contents of the drop bag below. I'm really, really happy with how the U-bolts and connector nuts turned out. I only put them on the front and back cross bars so I can still adjust the other bars until I'm happy.
It's a good thing I left room to move around the other crossbars. After countless hours of researching and debating on what river toilet system to get, I decided to just use a 5-gallon bucket for the first trip in July. I was ecstatic to find that it only required moving the dry box up less than an inch to make it fit 5-gallon buckets AND 7-gallon blue water jugs!
Sage was stoked too. However that pad she is sitting on is another learning experience. I bought an Aire Landing Pad. I figured it would work for passengers to sit on and me to sleep on. But it turns out the padding in is totally inadequate and on top of that, the blue is not the same color of blue as the raft. One of the reasons I got it was because I assumed their light blues would match. And red corners... Really, Aire? It's going back next week and I'm going to order a Jack's Plastic Welding Paco Pad instead. Hopefully that does the trick.
I have a lot more to do before she gets wet for the first time on July 16th. There's a bimini on the way, and a pretty sweet custom raft trailer is getting built for me up in Idaho that I'm really hoping will be done in time for the maiden voyage. Much more to come...
