I learned some things through owning my RIB that I'd like to pass on. Here's a pic of my boat. It's been out of commission for a long time due to a repair that I just couldn't find the time to do.
When I bought this boat it looked to be in good condition, especially for it's age 1994. The previous owner took good care of it, and kept it in an air conditioned garage. I did some good work on the boat rearranging things to make maximum use of the space available. It's a fast boat, easy to tow and launch, get in and out of on the water, good on gas too, all this because it's light. In short I like this boat.
I don't have a garage to put it in, so I keep the RIB outside. I was told not to put a cover on it, because it would heat up too much underneath the cover and things will start coming unglued. I didn't understand why, I thought a famous boat like Zodiac should be well made, and not coming apart is what being well made is all about no? But I heeded the advice and didn't put a cover on the boat. I wanted to install an overhead cover in the area where the boat is parked, but could never get around to it.
About three months after I got the boat I noticed one of the transom straps becoming unglued. No big deal I thought, here's my chance to learn how to work on PVC tubes. So I bought glue and PVC material, expensive shit both, but the price of a piece of PVC is ridiculous. And stitched a strap and a patch together to glue on the tube. I did everything perfect. The glue was amazing, after doing the procedure the moment I put the two prepped parts in contact they bonded together very strong. I couldn't pry them apart if I tried. Note that I did this work in the winter with nice mild temperatures.
Here's a pic of the original strap.
and the one I made.
I used the boat a couple of times over the next 2 months, and then noticed a strap that looked to be holding the front part of the tubes onto the hull is coming unglued. I pulled on it to see how far it will come off and this was the result.
This "harness" that was glued on the tubes slides over the front part of the hull, and also gets tied down with rope through eyelets. I figured it was essential to keep the tubes from coming off the boat and decided not to use the boat until I fix it. I still had confidence in the glue at this point, but I understood that this repair is much more complex than the simple patch I put on earlier. So I kept putting it off. Months passed and summer has come and almost gone, and the boat was just sitting there baking in the sun. Finally I made an exploratory attempt at gluing this mess. It was nothing like before, I worked outside and the sun turned the glue to crap in 2 minutes. And even if I worked fast and managed to get a layer of glue on the material, putting two pieces together held nothing like the first repair.
It didn't occur to me to take the tubes off and work inside the house. I ripped off the whole harness, and took it to an inflatable repair place. I was quoted $500 to make another harness (the original wasn't reusable) and glue it on. More importantly I was warned to check under the tubes, there's a thing there called a bolt rope that's also glued on to the tubes, it slides into grooves and that's what really keeps the tubes in place. I deflated the tubes to check and sure enough it was coming unglued too.
I was speaking to a fellow named Bruno at Inflatable Boat Pro in Fort Lauderdale. This man is from Italy and he's a character
has a lot of experience with RIBs and I learned a lot from him. For starters that harness is called a splash guard, and all it does is stop water from getting under the tubes and into the boat when it's running. The most fundamental thing I understood from listening to Bruno and seeing the different boats he was showing me they were repairng, and the premise of this post, is the following.
PVC tubes can be glued and welded. The welded part is durable and doesn't come apart. But due to the nature of a RIB's construction some parts will always have to be glued on. The glue gets reactivated by heat. This means that if a PVC RIB is being used in a hot climate like Florida, the glued parts will start to come apart, it's just a matter of time. The alternative material to use for tubes is Hypalon. Hypalon is always glued, but this glue doesn't get reactivated by heat, and the tubes don't come apart in a hot climate.
The tubes on my RIB were welded and holding up well, but all the addons like the bolt rope, harness, transom straps, rub rail, Bimini top supports etc. were glued on. If I were to pay for the repair, over a $1000 at this point because the bolt rope and the rub rail needed to be taken off completely and glued back not just the harness, I'd just have to do it over and over again in the near future. This was crystallized in my mind when for the first time I went over and checked the transom strap repair I did a few months back. As I said I did the work perfect and it was very strong initially, now it peeled off easily. I like the boat, the hull and engine are in great shape, and I didn't feel like doing a superficial repair and passing on the problem to the next guy. So the only way to save my investment was to retube the whole boat in Hypalon. Now I'll be able to cover it and keep it clean from all that crap falling off the palm trees.
Bottom line is if you're using an inflatable boat in a hot climate like Florida, do not get one with PVC tubes, you'd be throwing money away. I was told ridiculous stories about how the PVC tubes come apart. All Zodiac inflatable boats are made from PVC, go figure..
PVC vs. Hypalon RIBs
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