My Inflatable Kayaks - Part 4 - Aire Force XL

In 1999, I moved to the Cascade foothills near Seattle. I was told that there were many smaller rivers there, so I decided to buy an Aire Force XL. The Force was a new design that was supposed to be faster and more manueverable than other boats. It was the first boat I had that came with thigh straps and a footbrace, and it would have been impossible to use otherwise. At first it seemed like a great boat, but after a few flips I realized that it had all of the disadvantages of an IK and all of the disadvantages of a hardshell, but very few advantages of either. Basically, it allowed me to manuever around obstacles that would cause problems. But, in a larger boat, I would have been able to plow through these obstacles safely. Also, there were cases where the only route contained something I would want to manuever around. After a couple of seasons in this boat, I went back to Old Bessie once again. I eventually traded this boat away because I couldn't use it as a guest boat, and I hated running it myself.

There is one fun story about the Force and the Sotar. I was running the West Fork and Main Teanaway Rivers with some friends. I was in the Force, one friend was in the Sotar, and another in Old Bessie. I came around a corner and saw a river-wide tree, so I headed for shore and began to portage. I heard my friends yelling, and I looked around just in time to see the Sotar go under the tree and get stuck. I hurried to finish the portage, but I wasn't quite fast enough and the Sotar began heading downstream. I got into the river and chased it down. It took me about a half mile to get to it.

One of the tricks of inflatable kayaking is to use the strap that you use to keep the boat together as a "flip strap". You attach the strap to the back of the boat so that you have something to grab onto when you are trying to get to the boat after a flip. You never use a rope for this because a rope can compress and get stuck between rocks. This won't happen to a strap.

When I reached the Sotar, I grabbed the strap and paddled for shore. As I neared the shore, I needed both hands, so I stuck the strap in my mouth and proceeded to get out. The current grabbed the Sotar and the sudden force on my head pulled me over. By the time I got back up, the Sotar was on the shore and the Force was heading down the river. I had to go another quarter mile to get the Force back to shore. Five minutes later, my friends showed up in Old Bessie, and we continued on down the river.