Never again

[BogMonster]

....will I own an inflatable boat.

[Rant]

Some may remember my saga of tube problems earlier in the year, really irritating given its mere 300 hours of fairly light use over six years or so. Well, its been out of the water all winter, and I've used it a few times with no apparent bother since then. Today I put it back in the water, am now renting a space at the marina over the summer (invoiced in advance for the season) - went out for about 30 minutes for a run - and the f******g tubes have burst again its now too windy to recover it today but appears to have burst around the bottom of the tubes close to where it went last time (the seams at the back of the tube), at least judging by the location and quantity of bubbles when you sit on the tube.

I honestly don't know how anybody can be bothered with anything so damn unreliable. It might be fun (and it is when it works) but when it spends more time with problems than without, I just can't be bothered, I've got better things to do with my summer than spend it fixing boats. I'm beginning to understand why most boats aren't inflatable...

Today I feel like dropping a match in the fuel tank and walking away (and if it was insured, I probably would). Next boat I buy - if the bank balance recovers - will be a boat, not a plastic floor with stupidly fragile water wings attached which burst every other time they get wet. Hypalon - tough? The plastic bag containing a loaf of bread in my kitchen is probably stronger.

I suppose I will have to try and fix it or it will be worthless, but later in the summer I'll be selling it and I will never, ever touch anything with tubes again as long as I live...

I can only assume other RIB owners have a whole lot more patience than I do (or maybe spent a lot more money and can't bear to dump it)

[/Rant]

Right, now I am off to play with a nice reliable Land Rover. Ahhhh bliss

An extremely bitter and p***ed off Stephen

[codprawn]

Don't tar them all with the same brush. There are plenty of Avon's around that have had 20 years of real abuse.

Could it have been a problem with the repair or is it in a different area? If it is somewhere else then I think you should speak to Humber pronto.

[Nick Hearne]

Sorry to hear it's happened again!
They are not all this bad, my old girl is 12 years old & has never had a leak!

[Richard B]

Originally Posted by Nick Hearne

my old girl is 12 years old & has never had a leak!

Mrs Hearne has certainly kept her youthful looks, but 12 yrs old must be a typo!

[The Garfish]

Originally Posted by BogMonster

f******g

eiver sum nobbur carnt cownt orr iz fingirs arr orl a tremby.

wy doownt yew awder sum noo toobs

ribnit membir noe feer reckomends olmic toobin i doo beeleeve


gaRf

[BogMonster]

Originally Posted by codprawn

Don't tar them all with the same brush. There are plenty of Avon's around that have had 20 years of real abuse.

Could it have been a problem with the repair or is it in a different area? If it is somewhere else then I think you should speak to Humber pronto.

The sad but honest truth is I don't really care what has even failed. All that matters to me now is that it is an unreliable POS which I will never trust again and I'll always be waiting for something else to go wrong, that totally ruins the fun, and when the whole point of having it is for fun then there's not much point in having it any more. Some things are like that, when you just lose confidence in them completely. I'm so tempted to just run it up on a rocky beach flat out to smash it to pieces, I just wish I could afford to... but the amount of money I've wasted on it, I need to get at least some of that back

I'd like to thank all the people on here who have helped me over the last eight months or so, with the catalogue of disasters that this thing has been, thanks for all the advice

Just wish I had held on a bit longer and then I might have got the Rigid Raider that I wanted in the first place

[BogMonster]

After the steam had stopped coming out of my ears I went down to the pontoon for another look.

It's worse than expected, in fact I'd say its finished without a major job, probably no ribbing for me this side of Christmas at best and maybe not all season. All the orange outer layer is peeling off the hypalon below the waterline, it looks like the fabric must be rotten right through in that area as it looks to be delaminating into its separate layers. The reason there's a big #kin leak is that the 2 patches I put on over the previous holes have gone and taken what they were glued to with them, so there's not even anything left to glue another patch on to, just the rough fabric that is underneath the orange surface layer which now has air pssn out through it.

The only vague possibility I can see is to saw about six inches off the back of the tubes, get some complete new cone ends from Humber and fit them in the shortened tubes, and hope that the dodgy fabric doesn't go too far back.... I've no idea how to do this, but I don't have anything to lose as it's no use with a gaping hole in it. I might well find I stick new cone ends in and the whole thing lets go again first time out but I suppose its worth a go if it isn't too expensive. I've already got £100 worth of glue and thinners that I bought for the wear patches so I suppose I'm half way there!

Has anybody ever tried putting new cones in the tubes? I'm happy with how to glue the stuff together now (surface preparation etc), what I can't get my head around is how you would go about clamping a round join together all the way round the cone end to make sure it stuck properly Is there some sort of special clamp that the tube builders use? I assume to make sure it's airtight, it has to be done in one go, and not in sections.

Positive things? Obviously nothing wrong with my hypalon gluing technique

Will post photos when I get it out of the water.

[prairie tuber]

Sch*tt! Sorry to hear about this.

Are those the original tubes or had it already been retubed? What grade of hypalon are the tubes made of?

[paul tilley]

stephen what you need is a cone with a short length of tube already glued to it to overlap onto .if you open up the main seam under the rubbing strake it is quite possible to do the repair you need but bloody awkward .hard to explain on the forum but if you send me your email i will try to take photos of an old tube with instructions on how to do repair . ps i have just taught a guy from ireland how to fit his tubes via email

[BogMonster]

Originally Posted by prairie tuber

Sch*tt! Sorry to hear about this.

Are those the original tubes or had it already been retubed? What grade of hypalon are the tubes made of?

Original tubes as far as I know, its only 6 years old and a bit over 300 hours on the hour meter

Wouldn't have a clue about the grade, probably whatever was the standard type used by Humber in 2000.