Wildwater Aqualung 6" Cylinder Pump

Wildwater 6" Barrel Pump - $199. Note that we also carry a 4" Wildwatr, which is found on page 2 of our pump selection.

Retailing for about $30 to $50 less than Bob Carlsons's six inch pump, the Wildwater offers a good value and still has most of the same features as the Carlson.

The Wildwater uses a reliable O-ring, though no claims are made that this pump works well without lubricant as you sometimes hear about the Carlson. In truth, no pump does, and even with the flat washer system of the Carlson you are asking for problems with no grease. We actually had an email from someone last year wanting a small inflatable kayak top-off pump that would work without grease or any type of upkeep. Look, we don't want to insult our own customers, or would-be customers, but this really seems the height of laziness and we have to admit that our reply was accordingly a bit snide. How long does it take to lube a tiny cylinder pump once a season? The answer, in the case of a small K-pump style unit, is that it takes a total of three minutes. Take out one tiny phillips screw, pop the top & plunger, apply some lithium grease to the O-ring and part of the barrel interior you can reach, put the top back on and the screw back in. Heck, it probably took longer for us to type the last two sentences. The bigger problem is that the same people wanting a zero-maintenance cylinder pump also tend to be the ones who don't keep their pumps dry. If you submerse your pump, and water gets inside, the grease absolutely will congeal, and then you will be re-applying grease a lot more than once a season.

Lubricating a larger pump like a Wildwater does not take long, but if you decide to clean out the barrel interior with some paint thinner first (so you can start with a nice clean surface), it might take more like eight to ten minutes. Even so, is that worse than working your arms harder than necessary because the pump is bone dry?

Wildwater pumps have a two-year warranty, and use beefy spa hose with a universal tip. There is a retainer strap at the top of the barrel that helps keep the hose coiled when not in use, and it also holds the handle down. We also carry the four inch version of this pump on a separate page.