High jacking this thread to throw out there selling a 2022 420 solar and 25 merc jet, will post in the official buy/sell section. but can send me message if interested.
Boat has been amazing for the skinny back country stuff.
Boated upper reddeer and berland rivers in the fall with couple inches of water in some sections. Boated through clearwater lake in wells grey to the end of azure lake and then up the azure river for quite a bit doing backcountry camping, google map it if unfamiliar, these boats definitely have the capability.
Can load/unload the boat in areas where its tough to launch as can hand bomb it on/off the trailer.
On lakes I do agree when it gets choppy its a chore getting from point A to B, very bouncy ride as the boat floats on top of the water.
Never felt scared in it though as you cannot sink these.
Only reason selling is my family and 2 dogs outgrew the physical size of the boat, will probably ditch the river systems and get a 17ish ft boat to lake fish comfortably.
As awesome as these inflatables are there are negatives with them, cant comfortably troll when lake fishing. and its tough to row on faster moving rivers. Unless you got a rowing frame and legit rowing set up. Tried rowing down the upper reddeer and was tough lol with the current oar setup. Rowing lower berland wasnt too bad though or something like athabasca or nsr is doeable for sure. Some of my best memories were being out with a couple of friends floating down through edmonton on the NSR, on safer water could easily hold 6 adults. Seating for 4 but if you dont care and sit on the tubes its fine.
Being an inflatable these boats are designed to be able to inflate and deflate to store but that depends on your motor set up. If you want true portability would have to look at a 2-stroke motor in the 25-30 hp range to be able to take on/off the boat easily.
With my current set up with a 4-stroke 25 merc, weighting in around 160 lbs and the motor being physically bulky in size its tough to take on/off the boat easily and move around. So i just leave it on the boat in my garage for the winters. A lighter motor would be nice for portability but then suffer from lack of power/speed. I think the ideal set up would be a 420 solar with 30hp 2 stroke jet. In the future if i were to do it again I would look at a 470 with a 50hp ish motor. Just to boat around quicker and physically have a bigger boat.
It all depends on what you want to do. If youre running super skinny water, anything where you can have only a few inches of water in certain sections these boats cant be beat. In the cases of running skinny water having a smaller motor is ideal incase you hit a rock, (which you will) and its not a huge amount of weight being thrown out of the water. Going up stream is fine, its going downstream thats the issue, in particular fast sharp turns where you have to maintain speed and cant see the boulders that are under an inch of water in fast moving water. Vezdehood or other similar poly intakes help for sure, with a bungie cord strapped to the motor to bring it back into place so you dont loose your speed/steering.
Sorry for the verbal diarrhea, can answer any other specific questions if youre interested, not on here everyday but can check dms every few days.
Ive been eyeing these boats ever since the russians put up grainy videos of solar boats running skinny water 10 years ago. I love the boat and would keep it if i had the room at my house. But with other toys and trailer have room for 1 boat and gonna upsize to a lake boat to keep the family happy. But who knows in a couple of years i might be back to looking at an inflatable again. You know how boys are... my wife laughs at how much i swap out cars and toys, she says atleast you havent needed to swap me out yet
Anybody have experience with inflatable jet boat?
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