Rib Hire from Bembridge Marine

[Matt]

Background
Having threatened my wife for years that I'd get the twins out on a rib eventually, finally aged 7 it seemed like a good time. My own boat is just a bit much to be kid friendly - it has a small cockpit and is both a bit quick and loud. I wanted something family friendly and easy to use. A bit of googling found Bembridge Marine could hire us something easily enough, and given our caravan is in St Helens, local too.

Hiring it
I popped into Bembridge Marine to see Maia and Jim. Maia took care of all the rib hire stuff; you'll need at least your PB2 and driving license as ID, along with the hire fee and security deposit to be paid up front by BACS.

You can pick up the rib from bembridge, seaview, or cowes. We chose seaview since the tides at bembridge weren't particularly favourable. It also gave us an excuse for a look round seaview yacht club. Maia gave me a introduction to the rib they had on the pontoon in bembridge there and then so that made it all easy.

The Day
Night before the hire, Maia mailed me with confirmation everything was set. We turned up the following morning to seaview yacht club, picked up the life jackets from the box at the top of the slipway and made our way to the water taxi out to the rib. The water taxis work well with a couple of lads in ribs with 40hp on the back hooning round giving people lifts too & from their boats on the moorings.

Once onboard we checked everything over - not much to say here other than everything was where it should be and ready to go. The motor (naturally) started on the button and off we went.

I've not driven something with "only" 115hp for years, so I wasn't sure what to expect.(That's not quite true actually, I borrowed a Class 3B 115hp race boat last autumn - but it's not going to be fair to compare to that!)

In terms of overall usuability, the Shearwater Cutter with 115hp had enough power to keep you out of trouble, but not so much power that you'll get yourself in trouble either.

Flat out, but in the solent chop (so not trimmed to the max by any means), it seems to run at about 30 knots; it's a sturdy rib, and we were carrying full fuel, life raft (under the console) - so a fair bit of weight - just over 30 knots seems quite reasonable. I suspect it's also propped down a bit so that even fully loaded it'll get up and run OK - as a hire boat, it needs to suit everyone. If I was buying it for myself, I think I'd add a bit more HP (I'm not sure what it's rated at, but I guess 150hp) - I think 40 knots and strong acceleration are good things to have, even if you don't use them all the time. (e.g. you want lots of acceleration to make pulling up skiers easy)

We ran from Seaview to Cowes in a following sea in about a F4. Lots of of recovery in the boat, no risk at all of plowing the bow through the wave and very little if any spray. Then a cruise up the medina to island harbour for lunch. (I'm not a particular fan of the folly). Then back down the medina where we popped over to southampton for a look at big container ship coming in, followed by an into wind stint over to Wooton Creek. Running in to wind the boat again ran well. We slowed down a little on this run since the swell had picked up again and I didn't want to frighten the kiddies. Even so, I did have a lot of calls from one crewmate to go "max speed" and "can we get air". I had to say no in both cases - I don't think we quite had enough HP to get "up on top" and going faster through the waves would have just made it all a bit more uncomfortable and wet.

We did have a look to see if we could see @stingray in his garden to say "hi", but didn't spot him around.

Finally, back from wootton to seaview. We did think about stopping for a swim in priory bay, but the wind direction made it a bit lumpy, so we stopped at seaview. Back at seaview the water taxi lads were on the case straight away without us even needing to call them.

Total fuel used was 27 litres according to the smartcraft.

In Conclusion
Anyway, looking back on the day, it made the perfect family rib for the day. Nice merc 115hp on the back, plenty of both deck space and storage, frugal enough on fuel. Nice and soft handling, I think even an inexperienced helm would get on well with it. And of utmost importance to us, a great introduction to the kids being on the water.

Seating was excellent with 2-up on the console and space on 2x jockeys for 4 more behind. Plus a kamikaze seat in front of the helm along with some foredeck cushions too. All in all a really nice layout that provides loads of usuable space.

So having now hired it - what do I think? When you think about the cost of ownership including depreciation, maintenance, storage, all the aggro of launching & recovering and so forth - it really does make good sense just to hire. I probably will buy something eventually, just because it's nice for something to be "yours", but financially, renting from bembridge marine makes good sense.

So will I do it again - absolutely. We're back on the island in July and will almost certainly want to hire a rib from them again. Thank you Jim & Maia

[Pikey Dave]

Originally Posted by Matt

Background
Having threatened my wife for years that I'd get the twins out on a rib eventually, finally aged 7 it seemed like a good time. My own boat is just a bit much to be kid friendly - it has a small cockpit and is both a bit quick and loud. I wanted something family friendly and easy to use. A bit of googling found Bembridge Marine could hire us something easily enough, and given our caravan is in St Helens, local too.

Hiring it
I popped into Bembridge Marine to see Maia and Jim. Maia took care of all the rib hire stuff; you'll need at least your PB2 and driving license as ID, along with the hire fee and security deposit to be paid up front by BACS.

You can pick up the rib from bembridge, seaview, or cowes. We chose seaview since the tides at bembridge weren't particularly favourable. It also gave us an excuse for a look round seaview yacht club. Maia gave me a introduction to the rib they had on the pontoon in bembridge there and then so that made it all easy.

The Day
Night before the hire, Maia mailed me with confirmation everything was set. We turned up the following morning to seaview yacht club, picked up the life jackets from the box at the top of the slipway and made our way to the water taxi out to the rib. The water taxis work well with a couple of lads in ribs with 40hp on the back hooning round giving people lifts too & from their boats on the moorings.

Once onboard we checked everything over - not much to say here other than everything was where it should be and ready to go. The motor (naturally) started on the button and off we went.

I've not driven something with "only" 115hp for years, so I wasn't sure what to expect.(That's not quite true actually, I borrowed a Class 3B 115hp race boat last autumn - but it's not going to be fair to compare to that!)

In terms of overall usuability, the Shearwater Cutter with 115hp had enough power to keep you out of trouble, but not so much power that you'll get yourself in trouble either.

Flat out, but in the solent chop (so not trimmed to the max by any means), it seems to run at about 30 knots; it's a sturdy rib, and we were carrying full fuel, life raft (under the console) - so a fair bit of weight - just over 30 knots seems quite reasonable. I suspect it's also propped down a bit so that even fully loaded it'll get up and run OK - as a hire boat, it needs to suit everyone. If I was buying it for myself, I think I'd add a bit more HP (I'm not sure what it's rated at, but I guess 150hp) - I think 40 knots and strong acceleration are good things to have, even if you don't use them all the time. (e.g. you want lots of acceleration to make pulling up skiers easy)

We ran from Seaview to Cowes in a following sea in about a F4. Lots of of recovery in the boat, no risk at all of plowing the bow through the wave and very little if any spray. Then a cruise up the medina to island harbour for lunch. (I'm not a particular fan of the folly). Then back down the medina where we popped over to southampton for a look at big container ship coming in, followed by an into wind stint over to Wooton Creek. Running in to wind the boat again ran well. We slowed down a little on this run since the swell had picked up again and I didn't want to frighten the kiddies. Even so, I did have a lot of calls from one crewmate to go "max speed" and "can we get air". I had to say no in both cases - I don't think we quite had enough HP to get "up on top" and going faster through the waves would have just made it all a bit more uncomfortable and wet.

We did have a look to see if we could see @stingray in his garden to say "hi", but didn't spot him around.

Finally, back from wootton to seaview. We did think about stopping for a swim in priory bay, but the wind direction made it a bit lumpy, so we stopped at seaview. Back at seaview the water taxi lads were on the case straight away without us even needing to call them.

Total fuel used was 27 litres according to the smartcraft.

In Conclusion
Anyway, looking back on the day, it made the perfect family rib for the day. Nice merc 115hp on the back, plenty of both deck space and storage, frugal enough on fuel. Nice and soft handling, I think even an inexperienced helm would get on well with it. And of utmost importance to us, a great introduction to the kids being on the water.

Seating was excellent with 2-up on the console and space on 2x jockeys for 4 more behind. Plus a kamikaze seat in front of the helm along with some foredeck cushions too. All in all a really nice layout that provides loads of usuable space.

So having now hired it - what do I think? When you think about the cost of ownership including depreciation, maintenance, storage, all the aggro of launching & recovering and so forth - it really does make good sense just to hire. I probably will buy something eventually, just because it's nice for something to be "yours", but financially, renting from bembridge marine makes good sense.

So will I do it again - absolutely. We're back on the island in July and will almost certainly want to hire a rib from them again. Thank you Jim & Maia

Good write up & an interesting perspective on cost of ownership.

[Matt]

For sure. If you’re using it most weekends or more, the equation changes. But for 4 or 5 times a year, or fancy getting more experience before buying something, I reckon this is is a decent option.

[paintman]

If it flies, floats or does the other thing that I can't remember at the moment isn't the advice that it's usually best to rent it?


But, joking apart, for occasional use it's very likely the best way to do it. All the fun & none of the problems of owning a boat

[Lemonbonbon]

You didn't say how much the day cost in total ?