If your in the market for a Cadillac......buy an Avon as they track like no other.
I own a couple of old Avon's, an NRS cat, a Campways bucket boat, Hyside Mini-mee and a first year 12' Vanguard (Along with a garage full of friends and my brothers boats.). My favorite boat of them all is my trusty 12' Vanguard. I had a little problem with the thort attach points the first year and the owner of Vanguard went out of her way to get it fixed right. Their warranty is first rate IMHO. That being said, I also have friends with Aire boats and they stand behind their product as well. My Vanguard is a rare hypalon model, but their PVC ones I've seen are just as bomber and well built.
The big difference from other boats is the floor thickness. I believe mine is 8" but could be thicker. It keeps my feet high and dry and makes it punch through holes like no tomorrow. The few times I've rapped it on rocks, the stiffness of the floor has kept it from sticking, totally rapping, and/or submerging.
The design of my Vanguard is exactly the same, almost seam for seam, as the 12' Avon Redshank bucket boat I have in my garage. I also like how it has wear strips all the way around the boat. It has the Avon style steps/handles front and rear. The tag on my boat says it will haul 1100kg. I'm sure the floor thickness has something to do with that limit.
I'd buy another Vanguard in a heartbeat if I didn't have more boats in my garage than I can float in a lifetime.
Here's the secret if you haven't picked up on it yet. A Vanguard is a well made Avon at half the price (with a double thick floor) but it's made of PVC instead of Hypalon. (All Avon's are Hypalon)
The problem I've seen with Aire is that water gets trapped between the bladder and the outside skin. If you like to drop, roll and store them after a trip, they mildew fast and it's hard to get the smell out once it starts. you really need to store them unrolled. #2 is the zippers. There are tricks to opening and closing them without breaking them. One is to use wax or paraffin on them and be very gentle if you try to use pliers. If you mess one up......you'll be sending it off for repair.
I'm not a big fan of lace in floors. They just don't track the same as a glued in one. We had an Avon 14' in our fleet for a while that had a retro fit, laced in floor and we ended up getting rid of it and replacing it with another old Avon self bailer.
If you lace them too tight they can have a hard time self bailing. I was in a friends Star on it's maiden voyage down Browns. It was high water (2000+) that day and we surfed a hole between River Runners beach and Ruby Mountain. We literally sunk the thing and came out full of water. It took like what seemed several minutes to bail. Of coarse we loosened the floor up at Ruby Mountain and had no further problems.
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