Inflatable boat
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- The Allianz Arena stadium is commonly referred to as "Schlauchboot" (= Inflatable Boat).
An inflatable boat is a lightweight boat constructed with its sides and bow made of flexible tubes and a flexible flat floor. Often the transom is rigid allowing a location and structure to fasten an outboard motor onto, and this type of inflatable is sometimes called a "Zodiac boat". Often, inflatable boats are designed to be packed into in a small volume, so they can easily stored and transported to water when needed. This feature allows such boats to be used as liferafts for larger boats or aircraft, and for travel or recreational purposes.
Other terms are "inflatable" and (an old term) "rubber dinghy".
The modern RIB (rigid-hulled inflatable boat)is a development of the inflatable boat using a solid or sectionally rigid floor and capable of taking a high powered transom mounted outboard engine suitable for high speed operations well up into the ski boat speed ranges.
[edit] Types
Inflatable boats may have rubber floors, either plain or inflatable, or they may include steel, wood or aluminium sheets for rigidity. The tubes are made of rubberised, synthetic sheets of Hypalon or PVC to provide light-weight and secure buoyancy. The tubes are often constructed in separate sections, each with a valve to add or remove air, to reduce the effect of a puncture.
Some inflatable boats have an inflated keel to create a "groove" along the line of the hull improving the hull's wave cutting and turning performance. Due to the lightness, it is easy to cause an inflatable boat to start hydroplaning, thus making it faster than the engine would allow when the hull is operating in displacemement mode.
A growing use for inflatables is for white water rafting and kayaking, as well as in river, lake and ocean touring. Professional-level rafts and kayaks have existed for many years; since the late 1990s, more affordable inflatable rafts, kayaks (including sea kayaks) and canoes have been developed by European and North American companies. Typically these inflatable boats contain no rigid frame members, so they can be deflated, folded and stored in compact bags.
[edit] Repairing
Should a section puncture it can be repaired while still underway. More extensive inflatable boat repairs - due to pinholes, punctures, peeling, leaks or worn fabric - can be done in dry dock using two-stage synthetic rubber coatings (SRC).
Subject to a great deal of wear and tear from the elements - both water and sun - inflatable boats are often replaced when they could be restored or even repaired. Products that aggressively adhere to the damaged Hypalon or PVC shell can fix virtually any surface damage through a unique chemical bonding between the undercoat and topcoat that permanently vulcanizes the two rubber coatings together to make the inflatable as good as new. However since the Hypalon material increases the cost of the inflatable up to 15% not all manufactures provide the option. Some, such as the Brig and the Zodiac offer the option between the PVC or the Hypalon wich is recommended for environments of increase heat and sunlight.
[edit] Uses
Inflatables are commonly between 2 and 7 metres (6 to 21 feet) long and are propelled by outboard motors of 5 to 80 horsepower (4 to 60 kW). Due to their speed, portability and weight, inflatable boats are used extensively as:-
- rescue craft
- dive boats for scuba diving
- tenders for larger boats and ships in port and at sea
- luxury yacht tenders
- recreational water skiing
- for racing
- commercial or recreational fishing
- for military purposes, such as transporting soldiers from a vessel to shore
Inflatables up to 6 metres in length can be towed on trailers on the road. Some inflatable boats may be 14 metres (45 feet) in length or more and may include inboard steering, luxury features and full cabins.
These boats are often used by special-operations units of the armed forces of several nations, for such purposes as landing on beaches or submarines. They have also be used by special-ops soldiers without government sponsorship, such as guerrillas, pirates, and terrorists.
[edit] History
[edit] Early attempts
There are ancient carved images of animal skins filled with air being used as one-man floats to cross rivers. They were inflated by mouth. (Sometimes these images have been wrongly described as ancient scuba.)
In 1839 the Duke of Wellington tested the first inflatable pontoons.
For more information, see http://www.allinflatables.com/support/general.html#history.
[edit] Rubber arrives
In 1900 to 1910 the development of rubber manufacturing enabled attempts at producing circular rubber inflatable boats: in essence, modern-day coracles. These were only usable as rafts and could be propelled only by paddling, and they tended to crack at seams and folds due to imperfect manufacture of the rubber.
[edit] Titanic and WWI
With the loss of the Titanic in 1912, and World War I losses of ships to submarine-launched torpedos, the need for inflatable boats was plain.
One cause of the loss of life on the Titanic was the lack of lifeboats. Even if every lifeboat had been completely filled with passengers and crew, there would have been no way to rescue more than half of all the people on board. The first SOLAS treaty was designed to avoid such a disaster happening again. One of its provisions was to ensure that vessels had enough lifeboats to provide every person aboard the vessel with a place. Putting this rule into effect was not difficult with cargo ships: they had small crews and plenty of deck space. Passenger ships had to stack lifeboats on top of each other to able to carry enough to accommodate the large number of passengers and crew. Warships also had large crews and little deck space.
Between the two World Wars, Goodyear found a way to join rubber to other materials. They made life rafts of square-shaped inflated rubber tubes with a rigid floor. Such rafts were to be stacked vertically aboard warships, usually standing on deck and leaning against deck-houses. But conservative thinking from navies held back this new idea.
Pierre Debroutelle's 1937 design was the first known to have its inflatable tube in a U-shape. It was the first boat of its kind to be certified by the French Navy. Its added wooden transom was patented on 10 August 1943. This version was the predecessor of today's inflatable sports and pleasure boats.
[edit] WWII
World War II changed everything. Submarine warfare in the Battle of the Atlantic led to casualties among warships and merchant ships. US warships began using rubber life rafts. Since the rubber was much higher quality then 35 years before, the inflatable returned, but this time it was boat-shaped.
In military use inflatable boats were used to transport torpedoes and other cargo. They also allowed troops to make landings in shallow water, and their compact size and storability made overland transport possible.
One of the models, the Zodiac, grew to be popular with the military and contributed significantly to the rise of the civilian inflatable boat industry, both in Europe and in the United States. As a result "Zodiac" has become in many places a generic for "inflatable boat". After World War II, surplus inflatable boats were sold to the public. A version of this boat has been adapted by the Marine Mammal Center for use in rescuing injured marine mammals at sea.
[edit] Modern inflatables
Inflatable liferafts were also used successfully to save crews of aircraft that ditched in the sea; bombing, naval and anti-submarine aircraft flying long distances over water being much more common from the start of WWII. The PBY made by Catalina and Canadair seems to have been the first aeroplane to have had an inflatable life boat aboard, first as optional, later as standard equipment. A later version of that inflatable was pressurized by a gas cylinder rather than by mouth. A wire connected to the plane opened the cylinder valve in the inflatable after the liferaft was thrown into the water.
Until the middle 1950s inflatables were still rafts in civilian use, hand paddled but the outboard motor came into use in the early 1950s. (The outboard motor was invented in 1909 by Ole Evinrude.)
Also in the 1950s, the French Navy officer and biologist Dr. Alain Bombard was the first to combine the outboard engine, a rigid floor and a boat shaped inflatable. The former airplane-manufacturer Zodiac built that boat and a friend of Dr. Bombard, the diver Jacques-Yves Cousteau began to use it, after Bombard sailed across the Atlantic Ocean with his inflatable in 1952. Cousteau was convinced by the shallow draught and good performance of this type of boat and used it as tenders on his expeditions. "Zodiac" became the word commonly used in French for inflatable boats and RIBs. The term was subsequently widely adopted in the United States.
The inflatable boat was so successful that Zodiac lacked the manufacturing capacity to satisfy demand. In the early 1960s, Zodiac licenced production to a dozen companies in other countries. In the 1960s, the British company Humber was the first to built Zodiac inflatables in the UK.
At this stage, to achieve better performanence through the water and a more comfortable ride, some inflatables had underwater inflated shaped hulls, leading to the RIB.
See also Rib international- the only international magazine dedicated to RIBs
