Wheel chairs in ribs?

[Tim M]

I know someone is completely paralyzed from the waist down. She is extremely active, drives her self around all over the country, etc etc.

I’ve often pondered on whether it would be feasible to take a her out in a rib. I saw the guys who run the Quinquri (or however its spelt) operation out of St Peter Port in Guernsey lift a lady from her chair into the rib, but she appeared to have reasonable use of her legs. Having just read this thread it seems the biggest problem is seating.

Do people think it would be possible/comfortable/a good idea to develop a system whereby the person was lifted into the boat in their chair, and stayed in the chair; basically a system for securing the chair to the deck of the boat. I would think this would be a lot more comfortable for them....

[Nasher]

Tim

It should be easy enough to come up with a subframe to hold a chair based on the way pushbikes are located on roofracks.

As an example, the bench seat in Nashers Revenge removes in a couple of minutes and there would be plenty of room left to fit a chair. Any fixings would then be hidden under the bench seat at other times

If you are serious about trying it I'm sure we could knock something up for a trip out. Perhaps your friend could then offer advise on how to make it better, and we could offer to help others adapt their boats.

Nasher.

[fred bolton]

I would have thought it would be more uncomfortable in a wheelchair when the boat is bouncing about, fine on a flat sea. But if someone is unable to take some of the shock on their legs they will be taking all the shock on the base of their spine.

[fred bolton]

see this thread - http://rib.net/forum/showthread.php?...ght=wheelchair

[Petrov]

Check out this guy, been meeting him a couple of times and what he is doing for handicaped children is unbelievable

http://www.w4h.de/

[NautiAndNice]

I prescribe and design wheelchairs and seating systems as part of my job.

Generally (if I do my job properly!) a person's wheelchair should be both comfortable and supportive and should be comfortable for a calm RIB outing.
If the outing was to be rough/fast, then I doubt that most wheelchair systems would be comfortable enough to withstand the shocks and vibrations experienced. I have jockeys with winged backrests on my boat and these provide a lot of trunk support. Perhaps the winged supports could be made larger and a series of neoprene straps made to securely hold a person in position on the seat? Footstraps on the deck would give extra stability.

Anchoring a wheelchair to the deck should be easy enough - perhaps using a mechanism similar to those in adapted buses - some form of track that the wheels sit in and a clamping mechanism.

A wheelchair anchored to a RIB with the wheelchair user strapped into the chair, or indeed a person securely strapped onto a seat, could potentially be quite dangerous should the RIB capsize as the person would be attached to the boat, unless they were v quickly able to release themselves from the seating and swim free. Am sure there's a solution to this though...

Getting a wheelchair on/off a boat would be easy enough with some form of dock-mounted hoist system.... although you'd need similar facilities at any stop off points on the trip ... or failing that, a couple of beefy blokes!

[Tim M]

Odviously any system would be used in good, calm weather. . .

[Dirk Diggler]

You need to have a chat with Cookee, his leisure banana shark comes ready fitted with a pair of wheelchairs!

[John Kennett]

Now now Dirk, that's not very fair. Kitten did take the wheels off before fitting them

John

[Colin F]

Tim,

I am a chair user and have been for 14 years now. My rib is set up for use by me. i wouldn't bother strapping a chair down and sitting in it on a boat, salt spray will wreck the chair and they a fffffing expensive for a good one. a bench seat is the best for a chair user, but flat topped jockeys are also useable, grab handles are a big help also.

With regards to slamming the hull down from waves and jarring yourself, lets just say it teaches you to drive it quickly i've been out pretty rough stuff without any problems.

i've pm'd my number if you want any advice. Do you know what level your friends spinal injury is eg T12 (lower thorasic) or T1 (top thorasic) as the balance of people with different levels of injury varies.