Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought one of these to go river rafting and my buddy bought three more to go paddling with his kids. We took them out to Lake Martin in southern Louisiana and they performed great. I've had mine in the water 4 times now and every time I've launched from a concrete boat launch and had to "drag" the bottom of my boat along the concrete launch with my full weight in it to set off...not even a bad scuff. On our trip into the swamp we bumped into trees, logs, and all kinds of stuff and had no problems at all. We even paddled out to the middle of the lake and felt perfectly safe. We have life vests with us but just as a precaution. These things deflate and fit into the trunk of any small car and blow up in about ten minutes. They take a little getting used to as far as getting good control over them, but once you get the hang of it they're very safe and fun little boats. I'll list some things I noticed: - When you get the boat blown up most of the way work the pump really hard for about another minute to make sure it's extra firm and then quickly cap the valve. The more rigid the boat is the better it will handle in the water. - If you're heavy the front of the boat will come up a little bit and make it kind of hard to see, put an ice-chest in the front to counterbalance it. - These boats are easy to handle once you get the hang of it...but beware of windy conditions. Once the wind kicks up it can be very difficult to make any headway against it.