Sam TI,

That was a couple of years ago; I'm too old and tired to race a young pup like you now!

Seriously though: dual air chambers in the pontoons would be very nice to have if you sprung a leak. Even the toughest pontoon can rip or tear. My previous kickboat (Leigh outdoors, no longer around) had an outer shell made of something they called Rhino hide. It was tough too until I put an over filled boat on the levy and had one explode. The interesting thing was when it gave it tore along the length of the pontoon, about six feet. After removing the bladder I tried to continue by pulling the sides apart with my hands as hard as I could. Could not tear it. The main downside to that boat was it had a steel frame AND the pontoons were very heavy.

I'm sure that Buck's Bags are very solid boats. Instead of racing, maybe we can swap before one of the tourney's so I can do a "side by side" comparison. Or even better, how about having a contest at one of the opens/invitationals where a panel rates the boats entered? Could do small prizes for lightest, best rigged, best tube, etc...

Buzzfish

P.S. Swampy and I have had our boats in the Feather and Chetco Rivers. The only real problem we had were the wieghts being thrown at us by shore-bound salmon fishermen! That and having my rod rack come off when current pushed me into some trees...