The reason I bought a Raider boat goes back to the Red River, the one that runs off the Cumberland up near Clarksville, where I had my Sea-Doo going about 60 mph with my girlfriend on the back and hit a stump.
We scrambled to the bank and she was not too happy with me, which is fair. I called 911 and they sent an airboat out for us, so that's how we got off the river that day. The Sea-Doo stayed in the river, and I spent hours at the dock begging people to help me get it back until somebody finally did. It was a whole thing.
Thirty years of wanting a boat
I'm Ryan Deeds and I live near Clarksville, Tennessee on the Cumberland River. I've wanted a boat for about 30 years now, and after I sank that Sea-Doo I kinda knew whatever I got next had to be tough, and that's pretty much how I ended up looking at Raider.
Raider Aluminum Boats builds welded aluminum boats out in Colville, Washington, and they talk a lot about .250-inch bottoms and full weld-outs, which after the stump sounded real good to me. I didn't just grab the first one I saw though. I looked at a Weldcraft and a Duckworth and a bunch of used Raider Explorers, plus whatever else kept popping up in my feed, and the whole mess is on Boats We Looked At if you want to see it. I kept coming back to Raider.
I ended up ordering a 2026 Raider Coastal 230 with a single Honda 350 on the back. It started as a conversation about a 21-foot Delta, and somewhere in February I admitted to myself that more boat was the call, so I sized up. Her name is Doreen and it's on the fishbox lid. Everything that went on her is listed on The Build, and the longer version of why I picked Raider over everybody else is in my Raider Boats review.
Kylo at Selkirk Marine
Kylo Matlock at Selkirk Marine in Colville is who sold me the boat, and he stayed in my inbox the whole way, sending build sheets and answering everything I asked about the Ride system and shore power and deposits. When I was looking at twin outboards his take was that a 230 doesn't get the same benefit out of twins that a longer boat does and I should just go with one big Honda. I took that as a dealer looking out for me, and honestly it's a big part of why I bought where I did. I wrote up the ordering side in Ordering From Selkirk Marine for anybody thinking about doing the same thing from out of state.
Writing it all down
I'm putting all of this on the site because I want a record of it, the waiting and the build and whatever comes after, and writing stuff down is kinda how I keep track of things anyway. The Story is the buying side with every messy step in it, the gallery has the shop photos Raider sent me plus a few short films I cut from them, and the blog is where I'm putting the river stuff I've been reading up on, like ramps and locks and some local history.
There's a lot of water around here I want to see, the locks and Lake Barkley and maybe a run up to Nashville at some point, and I'd rather not look lost out there. If you're local, boating on the Cumberland near Clarksville and how to lock through are probably the best places to start, and there's a Lake Barkley guide too.
The build films are up on the YouTube channel, Raider on the River, if you'd rather watch than read.
Thanks to Kylo at Selkirk and the crew at Raider in Colville, and thanks for reading this far.
