RAIDER BOATS - Oregon's #1 selling Raider Dealer 4 years+!

Paint: Raider Boats uses an Industrial Imron paint and painting process. This paint is much different from the automotive paints that most manufactures use today. Industrial Imron is used on most of your heavy equipment, long haul trucks, mass transit and aircrafts. The reason why it is used in these applications over the more common automotive paints is it’s overall durability. Imron is a much harder biting paint than automotive paints. Imron grips the aluminum better and maintains its finish longer than any other paint on the market today. The application process is similar which might leave you wondering, why do other manufactures not use it? Simple, it’s cost. Industrial Imron is a more expensive paint to buy and use than it’s automotive counterparts. This added cost is seen useless to most manufactures caring only about a showroom sparkly finish.

We also don’t paint the sides of our hulls. Dock rash, crab pot dings, gaff marks and so on will destroy a paint job within weeks of purchase. With a vinyl side you have a very thick and durable coating that can be removed and replaced for much less than repainting. Vinyl shops are becoming a dime a dozen so getting custom graphics 5-10 years down the road might be a fun and cost effective way to sharpen up your boat and keep it looking new for years to come.

Recovery Floatation: It's true, Coast Guard requires level flotation on all outboard powered boats with a running surface of less than 20'. So to claim our smaller outboard powered boats are equipped with level flotation isn't saying much. What if I were to tell you that Raider doesn't stop at 20'? Now we're onto something.

It's very uncommon to have over 20' aluminum boats manufactured that include recovery flotation past the point used for “sound deadening”. Please take note of the rising trend here, Raider Boats doesn't do things just for fluff, we do things for a purpose. Each and every Raider produced is filled with recovery flotation, this is as true on our 18' Pro Sport Model as it is for our 30' Raider Offshore.

The Ocean can be an unforgiving playground and because of this, we make every effort to keep you as safe as possible, even if the worse case was to arise.

Furthermore, Raider Boats doesn't employ the use of corrosive expansion foam. Most all other manufactures spray a chemical mixture into the boat that mixes as it's sprayed. This mixture forms a “closed cell foam”. The problem is the foam doesn't stay “closed cell” through temperature swings and longevity. Overtime this foam becomes a corrosive sponge trapping saltwater and causing unrepairable damage that will go many years unnoticed below the floors of your boat.

Instead, Raider Boats uses sheet foam. Our sheet foam has to be cut out in individual pieces, a much more labor-intensive process and not nearly as cost effective as it would be to spray expansion foam everywhere. The benefits of sheet foam far outweigh the cost burden that we feel from the factory, costs that are NOT carried over to the customer. If it weren't substantially better, we wouldn't do it. Fortunately for you, it is. Sheet foam allows water to freely move through the bilge and drain out of the boat, when you wash the boat it will allow all the saltwater deposits to become diluted and eliminate possible corrosion caused by saturated expansion foam. The other primary benefit to sheet foam is that it is much less susceptible to breaking down and absorbing water, adding fuel burning weight and lost time on the water.

Performance Strakes: Most every Raider model is equipped with precisely fit and strategically placed Performance Strakes. Our understanding of strakes and their benefit is truly unparalleled. We've engineered our performance strakes to be aggressive and to have as little resistance as possible, increasing fuel economy AND performance. Whether you're jumping on plane or back bouncing in a coastal tributary you'll find no other strake that will track straighter and perform better than what we have designed.

Offshore Bracket: If you ordered your Raider with an offshore bracket you can be sure that Raider Boats doesn't just weld on a pre fabricated box with a swim step platform on top, or worse yet, just bolt the thing in place. Instead, we painstakingly engineered our offshore brackets to be as full width as possible, and seamless hull extension. Furthermore, we also carry our entire substructure through the offshore bracket making the overall product much stronger than any other design on the market today. No bolts, no rivets, just solid continuous structure. Our smallest offshore bracket is 61” wide at the bottom and our largest bracket is over 80” wide. This increases your lift, increases your time to plane, fuel economy and overall handling. This will allow you to run a heavier engine or even twins while other bracket designs would fail.

Family Owned: One of the great advantages of a Raider Boat is becoming part of the family. Raider Boats isn't owned by a corporation or by a group of investors, it's owned by a husband and wife that had a dream to build a sensible and affordable boat. Mike and Vicki started Raider Boats over 25 years ago and today, because of the strength of word of mouth, they remain one of the top aluminum boat builders in the industry.

Affordability: The Raider approach is simple, we build a no nonsense boat at an extremely market competitive price without compromising the quality of construction or componentry. Every Raider Boat is made by hand from skilled craftsmen, to ensure that the product you receive is made to last for years to come.

CONSTRUCTION:

Raider Boats builds each and every boat using a fully integrated and thoroughly engineered stringer grid system. Unlike the common and much easier to build box girder design, a well thought out stinger grid will give each hull an unparalleled strength and in turn is much less prone to cracking or breaking welds.

Raider Boats engineers its substructure to have continuous support from the mounting position of the engine to the tip of the hull plate. Raider uses up to .200” thick channeling that matches the curvature of the hull. This channeling is paired with several vertical plates that are integrated to the lateral supports. We even take it a step further by welding in angled supports at each lateral junction, this added angled support keeps the hull flex at a minimum and prevents the weld fatigue that is the most common factor in broken welds and cracked plate.

Our interlocking stringer grid allows us to begin sharpening our deadrise angle much further back in the boat, unlike the more common and cost effective box girder design, also known as a box beam construction. A box girder is typically manufactured with a constant deadrise carried further forward through the hull. This method leaves you with a constant deadrise hull rather than a true variable deadrise hull. Our ISG stringer system is proprietary to Raider Boats and is the backbone in the design of our TCV and Precision Vee hull designs.