Feeling all inflated again now

[BogMonster]

The deed is done!

Regulars will recall tales of woe with manufacturing/material faults with my tubes after a meagre 300 hours of use in the boat's life, and various failed attempts to solve the problem - I won't repeat the saga here, it is all elsewhere on RIBnet for anybody who wants to read it again but here is a quick pic of the crap gluing on the back end of the tubes to remind everybody:



But after a lot of work and a not inconsiderable wodge of money it now looks like a boat and should be airtight again - a bit of fine tuning may be needed to improve the appearance but in functional terms it should be as good as when I got it.

Firstly I got a pair of these from Paul Tilley:



which when attached to my garage compressor for a couple of minutes look like this:



Removed the end from the tube, cut 2 holes (measure, measure and measure again!) where the inflation valve used to be, and another one 30cm forward of this - I had Paul fit a set of pressure relief valves to the sausages, the original boat never had them fitted and it has always worried me on hot days in direct sunlight.

Deflate the sausage fully, stuff it up inside the tube and get it positioned in the right place. This took half a dozen attempts to get right as it tended to twist around during inflation and I had to let it down and reposition it. I also deflated the chamber in front to remove any tendency for it to push the sausage out, and then blew it up again afterwards.

Lots more air ... and bingo one inflated and airtight boat



I hadn't factored in the slight tapering of the sausages towards the seam so the last inch or so of the tube isn't completely tight but the rest of it is a good snug fit and hopefully won't move as long as there is pressure in it. May trim this back a bit to tidy it up in due course after I have been for a test run or two but I can't do too much without moving the mooring cleat which is a bit of a pain.



And on the inside of the boat it looks like this: inflation valve is in the original place.



Haven't attacked the other side yet as the original tube still holds air on that side but I have another sausage for that side if (or probably when) required.

As long as it doesn't rain I'm off for the first test this afternoon but it's looking good so far

Thanks to everybody on here for sympathy, advice, suggestions and putting up with a thousand questions. Thanks also to Paul Tilley for making the solution for me, I would recommend Paul's work to anybody who needs tube work of any sort, I just sent off the measurements and the perfect solution arrived

[Nasher]

Stephen

Congratulations, bet thats a relief after all your troubles.

Paul is the man when it comes to this sort of thing.

Nasher.

[jyasaki]

Congrats, Stephen.

Good to see you ready to head out again.

jky

[Tim M]

Stephen

It looks good - bet your pleased, I certainly would be

Might be worth gluing a sort of seam tape around the end of the loose bit to hold it in place?

[BogMonster]

Back after giving it a pasting this afternoon, no sign of any movement of the sausage so it doesn't look like it needs to be glued as long as it is inflated fairly hard. Not sure what I am going to do with the slightly flappy bit, I will think about it for a while. I could glue around the end but I quite like the idea of being able to pull the sausage out in 2 min and take it in and repair it in a nice warm house, if I do happen to get a puncture in the aft chamber. It took me about five hours to get the Sikaflex out of the end of the tube so it didn't chafe on the sausage, so I'm in no hurry to do THAT again. I've also got to tidy up the end of the rubbing strake as it looks a bit rough at the moment, and I might glue a wider bit of black fabric onto the sausage so it looks like it continues right to the end of the cone.

Well and truly chuffed with the outcome hopefully I will have a bit of a break now before stuff goes wrong (hastily grabs for nearest piece of wood)

B*gger me its cold out on the South Atlantic at this time of year though air temp today was 8*C on land but I fancy it was a bit nippier than that on the water... the sooner my flotation suit gets here the better...

The next job is fitting the stainless steel mast for aerial & nav lights that a kind RIBnetter very generously gave to me - thank you Tony

[jwalker]

That's a bloody good fit for distance engineering. Well done you for accurate measuring and very well done Paul for making it spot on.

Not sure what I am going to do with the slightly flappy bit, I will think about it for a while.

How about a bit of velcro inside the edge?

[BogMonster]

Originally Posted by jwalker

How about a bit of velcro inside the edge?

The appearance of the visible part is one issue; the other issue is whether or not the flappy trailing edge will fray where it is being battered by the water on the underside of the tube. I suspect it won't be a big problem, but I will have to keep an eye on it. Gluing would be the answer but if I ever open another tin of 2 part glue it will be 20 billion years too soon

[codprawn]

Don't go near any glue ever again - please!!!

Looks great - usual Tilley craftsmanship.

Just one question - as they seem to be quite large why didn't you get them made a bit longer with a rounded bit at the front to join them together???

[pathalla]

Good to see you have your problems sorted out, few things suck as much as a leaky rib. The exception of course being those individuals foolish enough to constantly tinker with their boat, I qualify in that regard. As to the loose fit at the stern, might some silicone sealant be used as a temporary/removable bond? Sticks good enough to hold, yet not so much so as not to be removable.

[Stoo]

Originally Posted by codprawn

Just one question - as they seem to be quite large why didn't you get them made a bit longer with a rounded bit at the front to join them together???

That's what I was wondering. Is it difficult to remove the tube on one of these? Why didn't you just get an entirely new tube?

I suppose the one good thing about having these sausages, is that when you want a bigger boat, you can just slide them back few feet and voila!