This was my first boat and I was completely clueless, all I knew is that I wanted a boat for messing about on the rivers in Oxfordshire. Upon delivery we headed to the river, everything still in the box! Unpacked it on the bank and started to read the instructions, soon threw those in the box, never to be seen again. The wife started to thread the rope around the edges, while I started pumping. Soon finding while its a simply enough to use pump, it has to be treated a bit carefully, as you can tell it will break if. The valves are great, the air wont come gushing out if the pump lead comes out. The seats all blow up separately and clip into place, meaning if you don't want them all for some reason you can have lots of extra space. The oars upon first look seems pretty good, they screw lock into place and seem very sturdy… but, rowing is awkward as hell using the rollocks. We ended up both sitting on the middle seat with an oar each, digging into the water deep and pulling like hell, it does shift through the water pretty fast which is great.
After the first outing, I decided to get the 'HYDRO-FORCE 12V ELECTRIC OUTBOARD' and battery and motor board of course. Cost the same as the boat but well worth the money. We went round the whole Oxford canal system and round the rivers. Amazing! We stayed in mid speed all the way, until I thought I would test how fast full speed would drain the battery! well it does! and fast too! My advice, be happy in speed 3, its not going to win you any races, but goes along at a nice pace and for many many hours too! Steering practice is needed though! Few bumps and crashes!
One of the oar screw locks has broken on the 2nd trip out while trying to row back with a flat battery. So either spare oars or outboard are essential!
Despite the pump and the oars, its the boat what you pay for and for that I can't recommend it high enough. Excellent fun, solid as a tank and sits nice in the water… want to come out on mine, let me know!
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