This may be a little bit too late but my diving club picked up our Humber Assault 5.5m with a Suzuki 70hp 4 stroke engine back in January.
If you click on the link below it will take you to some pictures taken while on the river Thames during the RYA powerboat-handling course.
http://community.webshots.com/album/113420915eTIcYF
This is a nice little boat but we have had a few niggling problems.
Completion was due to be mid December but this date slipped and it wasn’t ready until mid January.
On arrival at Humber to pick up the boat they had forgot we were coming & the boat wasn’t completely ready, this was after phoning them twice the week before to confirm the date & time of pick up.
They didn’t have a high viz bag/cover for the engine, so we had to tow it home 250miles without one (technically breaking the law)
On picking up the boat they said the throttle & gear change is a little stiff but it will loosen up with a little use. Yes it did on the second time in the water when the gear cable snapped leaving us having to be rescued on the Thames by a local Yacht club. In 37 years of our clubs existence using inflatables this is the first time we have had to be rescued.
On informing Humber of the problem they gave us 2 choices
1. We take the boat back to them & leave it with them while they fix the problem, Then go back when it has been done. This would involve 1000 miles of driving or the other choice.
2. Was to take the broken cable out and send it back to them & they would send a new one back to us, this was the choice we decided to go for, unfortunately it took 6 weeks before we got the new cable.
Even after re-routing the control cables to try and ease the operation of the throttle & gear change it was still heavy, even with the friction adjuster fully released. So much so that we have just had part of the throttle remote break, we have now taken the cables out of the binding that Humber fitted & just left them laying on the floor, this looks as if this may be a lot better but we will know next time it goes out on the water after fixing the remote.
This has been used 6 times now for diving with 6 divers & a boat man & it seems to cope well travelling at 22knts to dive sites, but if we add another person it won’t get up on the plain & the engine will only rev to 3000rpm so I think it may need a smaller prop.
Would I change anything about it ?
Yes!
1. I would have liked the centre console to be further forward, allowing more space for the divers to kit up.
2. I think Humber could do something better about their routing of the cables.
I hope this will be of help to you.
