Wear patches for 9m Ribtec

paulbrown22 · 02 October 2012, 20:55

Have recently bought this 2004 9m Ribtec. Sadly whilst looking after the mechanicals and hull, previous owners have somewhat neglected the tubes, treating them as disposable and letting ropes rub them down to the weave in places!

Seems a shame to completely retube, as they hold air perfectly, and have absolutely no repair patches.

Have people had much luck with getting wear patches to stick properly and stay attached to places where the Hypalon is worn worn to the weave? Trying to decide whether it's worth adding some wear patches, or just running as it is until the tubes completely die!

Have been out of ribbing for a while, but glad to be back. Went through last weekend and fixed the various faulty navigation electronics - radar (bad power feed), nav lights (corroded terminals), VHF radio (stuck squelch - a squirt of oil and good twist with some cushioned pliers!), swapped out a few dodgy curcuit breakers, etc.

Thanks,

Paul

G1712 · 13 April 2013, 12:11

What was the outcome of this, did you put some wear patches on? I seem to have exactly the same colour tubes on my ribtec 585 with similar types of wear on them. Would love to see if you managed to restore them/what the wear patches look like.

paulbrown22 · 13 April 2013, 17:47

I had the bow recovered by Scott at RibRepair in the New Forest in Oct/Nov 2012. The bow was by far the worst worn bit, and given the curves involved, the hardest to do neatly, so I decided to let the professionals at it! Very happy with how this was done - having been in the water ever since, it's holding perfectly, but I am much more careful about how lines are led around!

The stern sections I left as they were for the Winter, partly to see how much use I got out of the boat. Given they should be a much more straight forward patch to fit, will most likely try to do this myself over the Summer, when it's all warm and dry and the RIB's back on it's trailer for a bit. Quite like the idea of the grey/black hard wearing patches, but some of the areas are quite large, so will need to see what sizes I can get those in.

Regards,

Paul