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Old 23 February 2005, 17:23   #21
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Country: UK - England
Town: Hertfordshire
Boat name: Enfield Explorer
Make: Ribcraft
Length: 6m +
Engine: 2x115HP Optimax
Join Date: Apr 2003
Posts: 67
Just as another datapoint, our "little" boat, a 5.85m Ribcraft, struggles with 6 fully kitted twinsetted divers with a 90hp Yam. on the back. Just about OK but if I were replacing the engine, I reckon a 115 - 125 would make a big difference. Kitting space also a bit limited with a dual in line jockey seat for the helm and a central bottle rack.

David
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Old 23 February 2005, 17:24   #22
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Country: Canada
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I'm not a Diver but used to own a RIB with two other chaps who were and we bought it for diving as well as cruising. We had a BWM Deepsea 21. 6.5M with 150hp Outboard. Now we had a large console and lots of seating so diving with 4 divers and 2 crew was possible but a bit tight on space. Performance with this lot with the 150hp 2 stroke was fine. With a small console I'dve thought 6 divers would be no bother. You can still buy BWM's I think but Parker RIBS make a very similar (Andre insists its not the same, but it sure looks like it to me ) RIB, the 6.3m model. Real plus point about it is that it is very wide beam so lots of room and stability at rest. Good in a chop too. Get a 150 Merc Opti and you can't go wrong. Ask Andre (who posts here) to quote.

You see lots of Humbers around cos they are cheaper, tough boats and your average diver wants a cheap RIB that they are going to knock seven shades of sh1t out of. Humber pretty much owns this market so rather like the old adage of IT procurement (No-one ever got fired for buying IBM), no-one in your dive club is ever going to get that upset by buying Humber! Personally I think the Parkers are better finished.

This stuff'll drive you mental. Its far easier to spend your own money than an organisation's but then again....
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Old 24 February 2005, 20:36   #23
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Country: UK - England
Town: Portsmouth
Boat name: Sting
Make: Tornado 6.8
Length: 6m +
Engine: Yam 200 HPDI
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 645
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What's wrong with IBM?
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Old 24 February 2005, 23:41   #24
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Country: UK - England
Town: sheffield
Boat name: barracuda
Make: Humber 7.6 mts
Length: 7m +
Engine: 200HP mercury
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 179
new shakespeare 6.2 mts RIB.

hi having rib,s for over 20 years, inc tornado ospray temptress. searider. humber,avon,northcraft,, i have just bought a new rib 6.2 mts shakespeare from ed carter in devon. The best thing the rib will carry 6 divers and kit and only required engine of 90 hp. and only is 700kg so you do not need a 4 wheel drive to tow this boat. i think this is the only rib of this size that can be towed by a family sized car, and i was looking for a rib over 6 mts for a long time.
but the best thing is the price, a lot less than tornado , humber,etc about 6.7k cheeper, so why buy second hand when you can buy new for less than you think. give ed a call on 07915081041 or 01803839006 web site www.olmectubing.co.uk he makes tubes for a lot of rib manifacturers.


thanks stephen eyre maggie.stephen@blueyonder.co.uk
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Old 25 February 2005, 15:29   #25
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Handy Link

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Old 25 February 2005, 19:21   #26
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Country: UK - England
Town: Kent
Boat name: Cygnet
Make: Humber
Length: 5m +
Engine: Suzuki 70hp 4* outbo
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 205
Quote:
Originally Posted by tue
IMHO the Humber Assualt is not a good dive platform. The 5.8m Humber Destroyer on the other hand makes a fantastic platform with a 100hp Yamaha Fourstroke. Quick to plane and fast with 6 divers. Its got a wider beam and sits a little higher in the water than the Assault range, which are realy only suitable for safety boats in Yacht clubs etc IMHO of course.
I would have to agree with you on this one Paul; I don’t think its ideal either but its what we now have & providing we stay within sensible limits it’ll have to do until the clubs bank balance is sufficient to look for anything else.
Our club has only used Sib’s since 1967 & after pressure from a lot of newer members we decided to move into the 21st century by getting a rib. After a year of reading anything we could find on paper & on the net we had to find something that would fill a number of criteria.

1. It had to fit in a container for storage (this narrowed the field down a lot, most were too wide to fit without totally deflating the tubes)
2. It had to be towed behind an average family saloon car, no one in the club has a 4X4 & the club can’t afford to get one just for towing.
3. Price: As an independent club we tried looking at grants for a new boat but all the avenues we tried were referring back to BSAC, because we are not a BSAC club we gave up in the end.
4. We wanted a boat that would take 6 divers & a Cox.
5. Preferably with a 4-stroke engine to save on fuel & quieter.

So with these things in mind we asked all the various suppliers & manufacturers to supply us information & price on anything that would fit the criteria.
Most were too expensive, too wide, too heavy etc, so in the end we had a short list of only a few.
1. Tornado 5.4m: this would have to have a 2-stroke engine to bring it close to our budget & would have to still be partly deflated to fit in the container.
2. Humber Assault 5.5m with the Suzuki 70hp 4-stroke.
3. Humber Destroyer 5.5 with a 2-stroke engine.

Humber knew exactly what we wanted the RIB for & how many divers we wanted to carry, at no time did they say the Destroyer would be a better boat for this purpose or that the Assault would struggle to carry 6 divers. (in fact they advatised this combination as sutable for 7 divers)They even fitted the bottle rack so they couldn’t say they didn’t know we wanted it for diving, which is a bit of a pain because if we had known we would have waited a little longer to get something better.
The Assault with the Suzuki engine is very good on fuel, (it uses half what the Sib with a 2-stroke used) easy to tow, launch & back into the container.
If we knew then what we know now we would have gone for a 5.8m Destroy, XS-RIB (these only came on the market a couple of months after placing the order) or a Tornado.
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Old 26 February 2005, 07:37   #27
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Town: Portsmouth
Boat name: Sting
Make: Tornado 6.8
Length: 6m +
Engine: Yam 200 HPDI
Join Date: Oct 2002
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Odd really as Humber was founded by a diver! for divers!
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Old 26 February 2005, 07:56   #28
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Country: Ireland
Town: Carigaline/Baltimore
Boat name: XS-600
Make: XS-Ribs
Length: 6m +
Engine: Merc Optimax 150 XL
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 682
XS-Rib review from a divers perspective:

http://www.divechannel.co.uk/cgi-bin...oduct=&lgrdir=
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Old 26 February 2005, 10:01   #29
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Country: UK - England
Town: Kent
Boat name: Cygnet
Make: Humber
Length: 5m +
Engine: Suzuki 70hp 4* outbo
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 205
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy
Odd really as Humber was founded by a diver! for divers!
Yea I know that’s why we decided to go with them!
The Assault was decided on because of being lighter, narrower, and within our budget & according to their advising has high strength, low weight, deep 'V' advanced hull design, together with its sheer high bow and unique tapered keel paining surface, produces amazing results. Achieving fast responsive sea keeping capabilities whatever the sea state.
The perfect attributes for a diving RIB.
Don’t get me wrong the Assault is a BIG improvement on the old Sib’s its just that I was a little disappointed to find their advertising a little miss leading, after all how many clubs have divers weighing less than 7 stone? & their deep ‘V’ hull with high bow is not very deep or high as expected. It’s our own fault really we should have gone & had a look before placing the order, this was something I wanted to do but trying to get a group of people together to travel to Humber just didn’t happen.
So if anyone is thinking of getting a RIB for diving please do all your homework then go & have a look at the short list of boats before placing any orders, check that the consol is going to be in the same place as the ones you are looking at. This may seem a silly thing to say but from our experience we had read a few articles about the Humber Assault, & one of the things we liked was they all said how far forward the consol was which gave plenty of room behind for kitting up. The first thing I noticed when picking the Assault up was the consol was about 2ft further back than expected leaving very little room to kit up behind the bottle rack. Humber’s answer to this was they moved the consol back because some people were complaining about a rough ride when driving the boat. So now we have to have 2 people sitting at the front of the boat to level it out with all the equipment right at the back, or lay the bottles on the floor in front of the consol.
Oh well we all learn from our mistakes & hopefully Pickled will learn from ours, its nice to have a small boat that’s easy to launch & tow, but for 6 divers with twin sets I think a 6M rib would be better.
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Old 26 February 2005, 12:57   #30
tue
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Length: 7m +
Engine: 150 Etec + 125 Merc
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 526
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jackwabbit
Oh well we all learn from our mistakes & hopefully Pickled will learn from ours, its nice to have a small boat that’s easy to launch & tow, but for 6 divers with twin sets I think a 6M rib would be better.
I agree. I took 7 divers all with twinsets out on my 6.5m and it is supprising how much room they take up. I didn't have the bottle rack fitted at the time so it looked more congested as the kit was spread out around the deck, but our 5.8 club RIB is a nightmare with 6 twinsetted divers. It is a tight squeeze and kitting up is not easy.
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