ADVISOR

BOAT SELECTION:

The main advantage of every inflatable boat is its inflatable buoyancy tube. This defining part of every inflatable gives them some incredible features like the boat become about 2 times wider, which sufficiently increases stability. The combination of the inflatable buoyancy tube with medium-V or deep-V bottoms makes its seaworthiness really fantastic. The boat has a multi-chamber tube with an incredible buoyancy volume. All of this guarantees unbelievable safety, carry and passenger capacities.
The body materials are light and flexible. It makes the boat light, portable, friendly for storage and transportation. All the inflatables have a bit of a shorter lifetime and need more care and maintenance in use. The reason is: the main flexible material is much more sensitive than the piece of metal. This, however, becomes less and less of a problem as technological progress in product & materials design as well as the chemical industry offers better and stronger materials.

Features: Conventional Boat: Inflatable Boat:
Safety LESS MORE
Stability LESS MUCH MORE
Floatability LESS MORE
Capacities LESS MORE
Boat weight MORE LESS
Maintenance & Care LESS MORE
Lifetime 15-20 YEARS 10-15 YEARS
Storage space SIMILAR SIMILAR
Price SIMILAR SIMILAR

So, you have decided to buy an inflatable boat! Congratulations!!! Now we’d like to give you some recommendation about your boat size matter. Please consider:
• If you need a tender for your yacht or power boat – make sure that you know the exact maximum dimensions of the tender suitable for your yacht and the maximum loading capacity of your boat lifting system.
• The size of the boat is in the direct relation with MAX engine power, MAX passengers & carrying capacity.
• If you are going to use your boat for water skiing – the boat should be able to be equipped with a 25 HP engine at least.
• Passengers: mostly the Maximum passengers capacity, set in Technical Specification for the boat, and the number of real seating places in the boat are different. First decide how many people you will need to carry, and then check how many seating places the boat has.

First some words about the materials for inflatable boats in general. To reach the maximum of air tightness the main material for high-quality inflatable boats usually has 5-layers design:

• One central internal layer: it’s a reinforcement cord – cloth base, made of strong synthetic fabric,
• Two internal layers: coating of cloth base with airtight flexible material, which makes the fabric airtight and has high adhesion level to the cloth base.
• Two external layers: coating with airtight flexible material, which opposes the abrasion and increases UV
resistance and air tightness.

The most popular material for reinforcement cord is POLYESTER cloth base with the density parameter 1100 DTEX for recreational boats and 1680 DTEX for professional ones. Coating materials can be different and it’s the main subject of your choice. At the moment there is a lot of different names and trademarks of the materials for inflatable boats, but all of them can be combined into TWO main groups: ELASTOMERS and PLASTOMERS.

Elastomers are the thermo-reactive materials, which never become plastic when heating after they have been produced – mainly they are all sorts of rubber. There are two materials, which are undoubtedly leading elastomers materials for inflatables in the world: HYPALON and NEOPREN.

HYPALON has an excellent chemical resistance and stability against UV-rays, but it is still the most expensive option. NEOPREN does not have such outstanding stability as HYPALON, but its stability is high enough. This in combination with attractive prices for raw material, makes its use guaranteed. Mainly these materials are used in combination: NEOPREN – inside the boat and the tube, HYPALON – outside. Such a combination is the most popular for recreational boats. Only HYPALON-coated fabrics (on both sides) are used for military or some commercial purposes, where the price is not so important as other characteristics.

One of the most important characteristics of the both materials is their high maximum working temperature up to 140 degrees C. Plastomers are the thermoplastic materials (they can become liquid when heating). The main specimens are PVC (polyvinyl chloride) and PU (polyurethane). PU has unbelievable abrasion resistance – an excellent material, but too expensive to be a leader. The leader is PVC. You can meet a number of different names of thermoplastic materials, but all of them are PVC with slightly different compositions. And the price is SUPER! Thus, when speaking about the materials for inflatables, the choices are ultimately either HYPALON or PVC.

PVC vs Hypalon

Features PVC boat HYPALON boat
Strength SAME SAME
Abrasion resistance SIMILAR SIMILAR
UV resistance HIGH VERY HIGH
Temperature resistance MEDIUM VERY HIGH
Chemical resistance MEDIUM VERY HIGH
Lifetime UP TO 10 YEARS UP TO 30 YEARS
Price Medium 20-60% MORE

The number of parameters between these materials are very similar: modern technology and improvements of PVC are minimizing the difference step by step. From the practical side, the most important differences are :

– TEMPERATURE RESISTANCE. It makes HYPALON very preferable in hot climate areas (equator, sub-equator, tropics and some sub-tropics), where the boat surface temperature can easily reach the level of 80-90 degrees C. PVC is also very useful there, but you have to be more careful with your boat. In medium and cold climate areas this difference disappears.

– LIFETIME. PVC is more sensitive to UV radiation than HYPALON. But now the special chemical additives in PVC have nearly solved the problem – 10 years lifetime for PVC boats is more than realistic.

– PRICE. HYPALON materials now are 5-6 (!!!) times more expensive than PVC. As a result, in comparison with a PVC boat a HYPALON one costs nearly DOUBLE (!!!) price for foldable boats and 40-60% more for boats with a rigid hull. The difference is significant.

ASSUME: Choose HYPALON if you are going to be using the boat in HOT climates or if you are looking for the high end product and are not deterred by the price. In all the other situations PVC will serve you brilliantly!

 

Foldable boats are the classic example of inflatables, which originate from the first inflatable rowing dinghies and army rubber boats. Of course modern foldables have been sufficiently improved: transoms for engines, solid floorboards, V-shaped bottoms and a lot of excellent features have appeared. Everything is fine, except for one – the bottom. It’s soft! In some situations it can be good, but in some – bad. Soft bottom gives you a chance to land on a wild coast line and do not worry about hull damage – it’s soft! All the foldables are collapsible and very portable when stowed. Super! But … But every foldable just dreams about the features of RIBs : RIGID INFLATABLE BOATS – INFLATABLE BOATS WITH A RIGID HULL. RIB is a combination of inflatable and conventional boats – something in the middle. RIB is an attempt to combine all the advantages of inflatables and conventional boats and eliminate all their demerits. And it seems like a successful and very promising attempt.

For example:
• The resistance of soft bottom move in water is higher than any hard material like metal or plastic – so, a foldable is not the best racer. Top speed is for RIBs.
• The soft material nature allows only quite simple forms of foldable boat bottoms. Even if the bottom is V-shaped, a number of great ideas of hydrodynamics theory are not available in foldables. But it can be easily realized on RIBs.
• Another point: comfort and feeling of rigidity. Foldables are excellent for sporty use, when there’s nothing extra and everything is quite ascetic. But you can find a real comfort on RIBs – they have much more possibilities for that.
• Next point: assembling! With a RIB you do not have to train you muscles every time you go boating – everything is ready, just inflate and go!

A RIB is not just another type of inflatable boat – it’s another level of enjoyment. In practice most people became the RIB fans after they tried them ones. Of course, a RIB is more expensive and heavy, takes more space and care, but it’s a thing to think about.

Rigid Inflatable Boat vs Foldable Boat

Features Foldable Boat Rigid Inflatable boat
Seaworthiness GOOD EXCELLENT
Speed MEDIUM HIGHER
Comfort MEDIUM MUCH HIGHER
Features BASICS MAINLY VERY MANY
Assembling time MEDIUM VERY HIGH
Strength MEDIUM MUCH STRONGER
Storage space MEDIUM MUCH MORE
Boat weight LIGHT HAVIER
PRICE MEDIUM MORE EXPENSIVE
A foldable inflatable boat with a hard deck (wooden or aluminum floorboards) is a tradition of inflatables. Usually it includes some floorboards (made of marine grade plywood or aluminum) joined by means of some cross and ateral aluminum profiles, which also work as a reinforcement. Slatted deck is the most simple version of boat flooring : wooden strips on flat bottom. It’s very light, does not need much care, but has relatively lower performance as the bottom is flat. An air deck (or an inflatable floor) is an innovation which came to us just about 10 years ago and quickly became very popular. The heart of an air deck is so called a “double-wall ” or “drop-stitch” fabric” – a brilliant technical idea, which allowed to realize this project on a high technical level. Two airtight layers of reinforced PVC (or HYPALON) coated fabric are fixed 40-50mm away by an innumerable quantity of threads (2-5 threads on every sq.cm). After the perimeter is closed airtight it becomes a very hard and strong plate when inflated. To inflate it you need a special high-pressure pump, this is because the nominal pressure for air decks is 4-5 times more than for the inflatable tube.

 

Two best features of air decks are:

• Low weight ( 7 kg – 15 lbs air deck for a boat of 3.5m(12′) long against 24 kg – 53 lbs of a floorboards set).

• You can forget the mechanical assembling of the boat – just inflate to make it ready!

Unfortunately, the reverse side of this model has it’s downsides:

• Air deck is a very delicate, being sensitive to intensive use and abrasion, which sufficiently decreases the lifetime. With an air deck the boat is not so solid as with floorboards.

• And finally the air-deck boat is 20-30% more expensive than the boat with floorboards.

 

Floorboards, Air-Deck and Slatted Deck comparison

Features FLOORBOARDS AIR DECK SLATTED DECK
Assembling time MORE LESS MINIMUM
Weight MORE LESS MINIMUM
Bottom type V shape V shape FLAT
Performance THE BEST MEDIUM LOWEST
Performance MORE VERY HIGH LESS
Necessary care LESS MORE MINIMUM
Comfort MORE LESS MINIMUM
Lifetime MORE LESS MINIMUM
PRICE LESS MOST EXPENSIVE LOWEST

 

ASSUME :


• You may choose the foldable boat with Air deck just in case you need something VERY LIGHT and do not want to spend your time for boat assembling. Maximum care and delicate use – that’s what this boat will ask you for!
• Slatted deck is good alternative to air-deck as it’s also LIGHT and PORTABLE. It allows much harder use than an Air-deck. Think about that if you need a small PRACTICAL tender and if the speed performance is not the most important point for you. • A boat with floorboards is certainly the best choice for the most of other applications !!!