Valiant RIBS

[tue]

Anybody here have any experience of Valiant RIBS? Build quality etc.

[gaelforce]

yes i have experience of valiant ribs. however bear in mind that i haven't experience of much else and also, like most humans my pride will interfere with my objectivity. also my biases will interfere with my judgement. if you are still interested in my opinion after all that it seems to me that valiant produce a lot of ribs and are not a hand-craft outfit. it's a big modern factory in portugal from what i understand and they knock out thousands with very high build quality. when you're into mass production you cant get personal service and speccing but then again the qc operation means that just because manuel had too much vino the night before you dont get a bad rib. portugal is a (relatively) cheap labour euro economy so they tend to be price-competitive. in the 4 years i've had the rib it's had a fair bit of abuse, force 6-7 seas and didn't look in trouble. i've heard no bad reports from other owners either. not for purists, a bit of a toyota corrolla, but nothing falls off.

[Techno 40]

Our last rib was a Valiant 10.5 m with twin Optimax 150's. It had a strange box section protruding off the back of the transom which had the outboards mounted to it which decided to snap off at the mounting point to the transom, all bar a thread at the bottom which saved the engines going to the bottom of the North Sea. We had just rounded Cape Wrath in a force 4 worst way, and were not doing anything a rib shouldnt do when this happened. Lots of heavy duty ratchet straps thanks to the other boats we were with, and a 5 hour crawl to Scrabster and we made it home safe and sound. Needless to say we were not impressed, and even less so when we found out the 6 hour old rib we had bought had been used for drop testing by the RNLI. Lots of fighting with Valiant eventually got it fixed, then the engines started playing up. Got them fixed and sold it, would never get another Valiant rib, even forgetting the breakage, the thing handled like a dog considering its length in rough seas.

[Richard B]

I've done a training course on a Valiant. The boat seems to stand up to being worked hard, and looks smart after many hours of work.

Design features include a novel transom well, although I'm not sure how efficiently the boat drains after a flooding.

Be aware that some are medium V and some are deep V so be careful which range you specify for what you want. Also, tubes seem noisy at speed in a chop.

[bogib]

Nice boats have performed quite well over here in the cold climate, agree with Richard noisy in rough sea specially in cold weather maybe because they mainly use PVC which become stiffer and harder than Hypalon.

[mike]

I have a valiant dr 600 which has the "general purpose V" translated its a medium v boat.

I have done training on the same model and to date the only fault i could levvy at the door of valiant is that the seats are poorly designed , I have had mine rebuilt after all the backrests failed but that is all. I would still buy the console and I would buy outhill seats or similar (very similar costs but much better build quality.
The hull is a bit slammy in rough but you can normally trim that out and the tubes are all doing very well after massive hours on water.
If you want to know more call me on 01227 373372 and I will be hqappy to give you some info. or a run in the boat.

[tue]

Thanks for your comments. I am not after one but need some seats for my Ribtec at a reasonable cost. Currently Humbers latest bucket style jokey seats are winning £295 each . Anyone tried them??

[gingercoastie]

tue.

I have the humber seats on my, boat. They are very comfortable and suportive. Definatly worth the money.

[Yamaha tom]

I just purchased a valiant 520 i have a problem with my fuel comin out the tank green. Anyone have any ideas on how to totally dry out the tank.
Ive put 10 liters a fuel into it and drained it out again and its still comin out green.

[Jameslong]

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