I use a Clacka craft on the milder rivers. My Fish Craft cat excels at load carrying and fast class 3+ rivers. The cat is harder to pull plugs with,no chines and the cat is much harder to slow down.
The cat is much heavier, nearly impossible to flip, and you don't have to worry about rocks, dents or holes.
My cat is 16', 25" tubes, the floor is 12' long and solid and a little under 4'wide.The frame has 14 pieces, plus a 3 section floor. The floor weighs 120lbs, the total weight for the raft is 525 lbs.
I need a 35lb anchor minimum to anchor up.
I use 10.5' oars as the distance between the oar locks is a little over 6'.
This is on the Alagnak River, Alaska, we are on a month long float. The cat is hauling over 2000lbs of gear and people.
Some pictures of the cat on the trailer.
The frame sitting at the take out on the Alagnak, waiting for the float plane.
The tubes rolled up, ready to be loaded.
Loaded cat, on the Alagnak.
My cat and a super cat in the back ground.. The super cat is like a regular raft only with a tunnel hull. It has a solid floor on top of a self bailing floor, so it has more drag than the cat.
Besides fishing my local rivers, the cat has made 12, month long floats on various Alaskan Rivers and shows no sign of wear.