Airalite....

Is anybody familiar with Perception Airalite? If so, do you have any pros or cons?



Thanks

I have…
a friend who paddles a Perception Sonoma made of Airalite.

She’s been paddling it for a couple of years, and loves it. This is in Florida, where dragging over fallen trees is common, and hitting the sandbar/limestone can happen.

For an open cockpit boat, it seems to scoot along very well.

T

Sonoma airlite
I have a Sonoma airlite 10’ That I will never get rid of. I really love this little boat. I used it in an endurance race in April about 20-30 downed trees to cross, lots of rocks, in 15 miles. It weighs 35lbs. I do alot of paddling by myself so I put it in the back of my truck and go. Its easy to load and unload by myself.

Perception Carolina
I’ve got a Carolina 13.5 (the old design) in Airalite. I love it. When I bought it, it was so much lighter than the others I was looking at, but not as expensive as Kevlar. I have to admit I may also have fallen for it because it’s so shiny…It’s a great-looking boat. Airalite (like Kevlar) is more rigid than plastic–which means no oilcanning but also it’s less likely than plastic to bounce back from a little banging. Still, it’s strong–I dropped mine off the top of my Astro once and it survived (it did bounce off my sternum and I still have the scar).



It weighs 51 lbs.

Thanks
Thank you for the input. I am working on picking up a Carolina, but wanted to make sure there wern’t any last minute issues I should know about with Airalite before committing. I’m looking forward to paddling again.

Just for the record…
Airlite IS plastic…

I concur
Yep, but not Poly…