bad colours for ribs

[catrib]

Hi guys,

Im buying a new inflatable boat off a company, and I have a wide choice of colours to choose from. Ive seen a picture of an all black boat and it looks really well. My question is is it a bad colour to choose because of its heat absorbancey. Will the tubes be more likely to suffer accidental over inflation or will the material break down quicker with the sun rays.

Anybody with a black or very dark colour rib with any experiance of such problems.

Thanks

[willk]

Originally Posted by catrib

Will the tubes be more likely to suffer accidental over inflation or will the material break down quicker with the sun rays

Probably not in Mayo...

Welcome to RIBnet! Most half decent ribs will have overpressure valves fitted, so a "burst" is not likely. Keeping them clean is a problem I've heard owners mention, but again, not a factor in racing.

[gotchiguy]

Originally Posted by willk

Probably not in Mayo...

Welcome to RIBnet! Most half decent ribs will have overpressure valves fitted, so a "burst" is not likely.

Yeahhhh butttt...... the overpressure valves only release air when the pressure is actually kwite high. Ie. high enough that if it occurs regularly it definitly has the potential to damage seams etc. so simply relying on the fact that the o/p valves will blow I don't really think is a good idea.

Think it was Martini that told me that a while back, he's always topping up/ letting air out his tubes so he ought to know

[willk]

Originally Posted by gotchiguy

Think it was Martini that told me that a while back, he's always topping up/ letting air out his tubes so he ought to know

He'll be delighted that you mentioned that on here. In fairness, I would fight to the death to defend a man's right to inflate/deflate his tube/s as much as he feels the need.

I stand by my original reply though.

[Erin]

Originally Posted by gotchiguy

the overpressure valves only release air when the pressure is actually kwite high. Ie. high enough that if it occurs regularly it definitly has the potential to damage seams etc.

Errrm, so why exactly do we bother having them then. I would have thought 2.4psi would be fairly harmless to seams etc. Stuffing or bouncing off a pontoon probably induces a far greater short term pressure build up before a PRV would be able to vent the excess.

Originally Posted by gotchiguy

Think it was Martini that told me that a while back, he's always topping up/ letting air out his tubes so he ought to know

I've never asked or looked that closely, but I thought the reason he did that was because he didn't have PRV's

To answer the OP, black is probably fine but will get hot to the touch in summer. Other dark colours such as navy blue or maroon have a tendancy to fade quite quickly. I think Gotchiguy's boat started off maroon

[m chappelow]

Another slight downfall with black tubes is in hot sunny weather anyone just sitting on them can get a very hot backside or backs of their legs scorched ,and the black shows up salt stains much more than other colours when the water evaporates in the sun and leaves the salt behind.

[willk]

Having thought about this a bit more, I'd hazard a guess that more tubes have been damaged from use while underinflated, than from accidential overinflation from sunlight/heat.

[gotchiguy]

Originally Posted by Erin

Errrm, so why exactly do we bother having them then.

Because they stop the tube blowing An unexpected blow can result in some very unhappy faces TBH though I don't suppose you really need them though do you? Your flashes of "Burgundy" can exactly make much difference to the hardness potential? In fact in some cases I suppose flashes of reddish colour may actually be an implication of having a leak in the tube

Originally Posted by willk

Having thought about this a bit more, I'd hazard a guess that more tubes have been damaged from use while underinflated, than from accidential overinflation from sunlight/heat.

I agree. We store Into the Red deflated, and the potential for damage is huge. Not only to the tubes themselves but the the GRP lip they are attached to, especially if climbing on board when it's on the trailer.

[chewy]

Originally Posted by gotchiguy

Yeahhhh butttt...... the overpressure valves only release air when the pressure is actually kwite high. Ie. high enough that if it occurs regularly it definitly has the potential to damage seams etc. so simply relying on the fact that the o/p valves will blow I don't really think is a good idea.

Think it was Martini that told me that a while back, he's always topping up/ letting air out his tubes so he ought to know

How high is quite high?

[willk]

Originally Posted by m chappelow

Another slight downfall with black tubes is in hot sunny weather anyone just sitting on them can get a very hot backside or backs of their legs scorched

Yes, but he's in Mayo (Mayo Town actually, so we can assume that he's not teaching Geography ). I'd guess that bare skin burns on a Caesar in Mayo are a fairly remote risk.

Kinda wet/drysuit territory