raft puntures

[mski]

what kind of punture or tears have you experienced and how did you go about fixing them on the river. did you use tear aid, gorilla tape or something else. this is a good subject with the season getting underway....stay safe and float high, mark

[AlaskaTrueAdventure]

Bears...

MY ONLY PUNCTURES IN THE LAST THREE YEARS HAVE BEEN BROWN BEAR TOOTH PUNCTURES....THAT QUICKLY REPAIRED WITH THE REPAIR TAPE PROVIVED BY AIRE.
THE REPAIRS SEEM TO LAST.
I INSPECT THEM OCCASIONALLY. THEY LOOK FINE. NO AIR LEAKS.

(The last bear returned during the day time after the second bite...and became a dead bear...bite mark analysis confirmed that the correct vandal-bear was punished)

DENNIS

[Gulkana Rafting]

MY ONLY PUNCTURES IN THE LAST THREE YEARS HAVE BEEN BROWN BEAR TOOTH PUNCTURES....THAT QUICKLY REPAIRED WITH THE REPAIR TAPE PROVIVED BY AIRE.
THE REPAIRS SEEM TO LAST.
I INSPECT THEM OCCASIONALLY. THEY LOOK FINE. NO AIR LEAKS.

(The last bear returned during the day time after the second bite...and became a dead bear...bite mark analysis confirmed that the correct vandal-bear was punished)

DENNIS

Stop rubbing your raft with dead caribou guts and those bears will leave you alone! Haaaa

Walt

[Bullelkklr]

If only

we could punish all guilty offenders in similiar manner............

[alaskachuck]

I have a bucks bags cat. I use the kit from sportmans. It is aqua seal and comes with some round patches. I carry tape too. I have used the patches twice (due to me) and they have performed great.

[Jim Strutz]

Almost all the punctures I've seen are produced while dragging the boat to & from the river, or stuffing it in the back of a truck. One time I hauled an Aire cat back from Fortymile with the tubes uninflated stacked on the floor of the trailer, and the frame on top. Last time I'll ever do that. Had half a dozen holes in the bladders by the time I got home.

One other time I whacked the wall really hard in Sixmile, and broke a frame pipe. The ragged edge of the frame was then banged through the side of the tube, making several neat round shaped holes in my boat. I finished the ride with that tube flat, and fixed it at home.

There was once though, that I ran into a sharp stick and a splinter actually penetrated the Aire's fabric and poked a tiny hole in the bladder. Again, I waited to fix it at home. Glued on patches seem to be permanent.

I have had the pleasure of un-ziping Aire bladders on river trips, but each time was to redo a bad patch job I did at home. I used the Aire urethane tape to fix these, but it only seems to last 3-4 years before coming loose.

BTW, zipping an Aire bladder after floating silt laden rivers is not as easy as it might seem while at home.

[AlaskaTrueAdventure]

Bridges

After thinking about years past I remember putting an 18" slice in an AIRE Jaguar cataraft. I had finished the Lions Head run on the upper Mat River and went under the bridge. I forget the name of that little bridge, but we used to take out there and then do a second or third Lions Head run.

Keep in mind that that bridge has been there a long time. Every old refrigerator, old bed-springs, old cars, everything/anything not wanted has gone off that bridge and into the river. That day, 30 yards from the take-out something sharp under the water surface found my boat.

Watch out on the down-river side of any bridge. Who knows what lurks under the surface.

Dennis
AK TAGS

[Jim Strutz]

"...I remember putting an 18" slice in an AIRE Jaguar cataraft. I had finished the Lions Head run on the upper Mat River.."

My son-in-law did the same thing, in the exact same place, with my Aire Cougar. Only he hung the boat right there on a piece of the old bridge that was just under the surface. What a mess. We got him and my grandson to shore, but couldn't get the boat off. Someone else managed to get the boat loose a couple days later and drug it to shore, where Jim King, who was happening by, saw it, and brought it back to town for me. That fix took a whole lot of patching to get it back in shape. I even had to replace one frame member that had been worn so much on a rock, I guess, that it was nearly cut in half. Boat's fine now though.

I still don't know who all was involved in this boat retrieval, but thank you again Jim, and whoever else is responsible.

I understand someone took a Caterpillar in there shortly afterwards and removed that junk from the river. I'm thinking the owner of the washed out bridge was potentially responsible for it.