2/9/2009 | by: Dale Van Valkenburg

I've had my green 2004 model 143R on well over 1,000 river miles the past 4 seasons and I really could not be happier with my boat. As your description aptly says, I use this boat for everything: taking novice paddle crews on day trips through the local Class IIIs; week- long trips with the wife, two kids and all our gear on a variety of rivers (Middle Fork, Rogue, Snake, John Day, Deschutes, McKenzie and Owyhee); and a three week epic through the Grand Canyon.
This boat truly will do it all, and do it well. My boat has the standard self-bailing floor, which I believe to be a benefit to the boat's handling capabilities. The floor actually takes on several gallons of water, adding ballast right where it is most beneficial; at the very bottom of the boat. As a result, the floor of the boat stays planted through big water, which undoubtedly saved me from a couple of prime flipping opportunities on the Colorado. Photos and videos of boats in our group taking on the big rapids in the Grand Canyon bear this out, as my Aire never looks in danger of going over, while the numerous other makes of boat in our party are often flashing serious amounts of the bottom of the floor, and three of them actually went over all the way in the same waves that my Aire, sans passenger, remained stable in. Trust me when I say this attributable much more to the design of the boat than the skills of the oarsman. While this extra floor ballast would seem to be a liability in shallow technical rivers, I have not found this to be the case on two low-water Middle Fork trips starting at Boundary Creek. Both trips were launched with the gage around 2.5, and both times the boat was fully loaded with passengers and their gear for a week long trip. The boat is as easy to maneuver in tight water as any other boat I've rowed, including SOTARs and Maravias, and I had more success than most of the other boaters on these trips at avoiding hanging up on barely submerged rocks
While Aire now offers the sealed floor pocket as an option to keep the ballast water out, I think they got it right the first time around. Just make sure you let the water drain out for a minute or so when you are lifting it onto a trailer at the end of the run! My 143R also has tremendous load carrying capacity for its size. Mine is outfitted with a Recretec frame with two 40" wide dryboxes and a 40" wide, 150 qt. cooler. The 14' Maravia Williwaw 1's that a couple of my boating buddies run, despite being the same basic size dimensionally, cannot take as big of cooler or dry boxes. I believe this is at least in part because of the "knuckle" coupler attachments for the detachable thwarts on the inside of the tubes. The thwarts for my Aire attach using straps and cam buckles that attach to the piano hinge floor lacing, so when they are removed, they are gone entirely (this also allows unlimited flexibility in where the thwarts are placed).
Their Maravias are beautiful boats, but my Aire was significantly less expensive and I wouldn't trade it for one of theirs even if the price were equal. I have not had the opportunity to utilize the truly amazing warranty that Aire offers (due to good fortune as much as anything), but it certainly brings me peace of mind before hauling my boat long distances to run Class IV or V water. The boat has been very durable, with no undue wear or damage from shallow rivers.
My only concession to maintenance has been to add a urethane chafe strip under the frame rails to prevent the cosmetic wear marks from becoming something more serious over time. AIRE now offers this [a 43 oz. PVC chafe strip] as a standard feature, and when I called the factory to ask about adding this to my boat, they suggested a urethane "paint" kit as the best aftermarket option. It was easy enough for a novice boat smith to take on, and the end result looks good and has solved the frame wear issue. I'd highly recommend it to anyone with an older model without the chafe strips.
I could go on for an entire three week raft trip about the many virtues of my AIRE (ask my Grand Canyon trip mates), but that covers many of the high points. Barring serious incident, I really think this boat may last me for 20 years or more at its current pace, and I have not experienced any "boat envy" with any of my rafting buddies newer boats that would make me want to get something different. I really think that my Aire is as good as a boat can get. Sincerely, Dale