I ordered my boat through Selkirk Marine in Colville, Washington while living near Clarksville, Tennessee, which is a long way to shop for anything, let alone a boat, so I figured I'd write down how it actually went month by month for anybody else thinking about ordering a Raider from the other side of the country.
The guy on the other end the whole time was Kylo Matlock. Selkirk Marine sells Raider boats out of Colville, and their listings use the same address as Raider Aluminum Boats, 367 Old Dominion Road, Colville, WA 99114, where Raider says it's been building since 1989. So when I say dealer, picture the folks right next to the shop floor, which turned out to matter more than I expected.
January and February
In January I was talking to a few builders at once, a Weldcraft build request and a Duckworth at Tobler Marina and a bunch of used Raider listings, and on January 26 Kylo sent my first Raider build sheet for a 21-foot Delta along with the electronics package options. That's kinda when it got real for me, because a build sheet makes you answer questions you didn't even know you had.
Between February 1 and 3 I put down a $1,000 show deposit to lock a build slot. It was a generalized contract with the details to get ironed out after the show, and I'd honestly recommend something like that, since a small deposit to hold a slot is a decent way to stop shopping and start deciding.
I lived in the Delta questions for a while and then admitted more boat was the call. Between February 19 and 23 we moved to the Coastal 230 with a Honda 350, Shockwave-style suspension seats, a Kraken trolling motor, Power-Poles, a second station and a rod locker, and there were a lot of quote revisions in there. The final sheet came together February 25 and 26, and I remember making a bunch of little calls at the end like a porta-potty cutout in the port bench, an equalizer tube between the livewell and the sink, a transom work tray with cup holders, and deleting the Shark Hide coating.
Spring and summer
March 9 the down payment was confirmed and I started trading flooring samples back and forth for the AquaTraction deck. The finalized contract revision after that added the Seakeeper Ride system to the Coastal with the Honda BF350 and Garmin package 5.
On May 26 and 27 I had the name Doreen put on the fishbox lid in AquaTraction. Then June 29 and 30 I added the full shore-power package so she can live in a slip, which is the outlets, breaker, charger and galvanic isolator.
Then the photos started showing up. The hull was in the jig on July 20, the cabin was welded on by August 10, the hardtop and bow rails were on by late August, and the helm and second station were going in by October. All 24 photos are in the gallery, the whole timeline is on The Story and the gear list is on The Build.
What went well
Kylo answered every question I sent, about build sheets and the Ride system and shore power and deposits, and I already said this on the Decisions page but I'll say it again here. When you're on the other side of the country a dealer who answers fast is worth a lot.
The advice was honest too. Twins were on the table for a while and Kylo's take was that a 230 doesn't get the same benefit from twin outboards that a longer 250 does, so go with one big Honda 350. That's not what a guy trying to upsell you says.
And the photos made the wait easier. Kinda.
If you're ordering from far away
The biggest thing I'd tell somebody is to get every change in writing, because my contract went through revisions and each one was its own document. I'd also decide the welded-in stuff first, like the suspension seat bases, since you can't just bolt that on after the fact. Think about where the boat's going to live early on, because I didn't add shore power until June, months after the contract, and it would have been easier to think about up front. Ask about shipping early since it's a long way to Tennessee. And ask the dumb questions, I sure did.
If you're still shopping Raiders, my Raider Boats review covers why I picked them, and if you're stuck on hull material there's aluminum vs fiberglass.
