F-Ribs And Sibs - Inflatable Boat Community

Hi, just joined this site. I have been a boater for many years both on inland waterways and sea, from the Baltic to the North Sea to the Med and all in between. My main boat has been for several years a 43 ft steel cruiser with which I have extensively cruised throughout Europe. At the moment the boat is overwintering on the River Saone in France, after making my way up the Rhone and Saone from the Med back in heatwave June and July. Next year I am heading back to the Netherlands with the intention of doing less long distance cruising and using the boat as a liveaboard base during summer. During all my cruising I have carried either a Zodiac 310 Cadet or / and a Bombard AX2 as tenders (I still have both). I have used a Honda 2.3hp outboard which is fine when using the inflatables as a tender.
OK, enough of the past. As I also have recently bought a caravan and the thought is now to upgrade my inflatables from being „just“ a tender to accompanying me on roadtrips to remoter regions and to explore less accessible waterways i.e. lakes, lochs, loughs, smaller rivers etc. etc. which would be impossible with a large cruiser. In particular thoughts at the moment are Scotland bound. I would obviously need an upgrade in the propulsion dept. from 2.3 hp and would probably make do with 6 hp outboard as I don‘t want the extra weight of a larger outboard to have to drag around.
There you go - that‘s it from me.

Hi Moonshadow and to the forum!

It sounds like you are a very experienced boater. I would love to cruise around Europe, but that's a little tricky from here.

6hp is enough on a clean hull on a calm day around Scotland, but there aren't that many calm days!
It's getting to be a real problem that the only outboard which are easy to move around aren't very powerful. There is a 9.9 Selva which is a single cylinder engine and not much heavier than the 6hp engines but its noisy and vibrates a lot (one cylinder!), also here in the UK we don't see many of them.

Many thanks Chris for your reply. You are right of course that a 6 hp engine is cutting it a bit fine. It was just that I am a little older in the meantime and trying to save the old back etc. Anyway, you are right and I have decided to go for the 9.8 hp Tohatsu which weighs in at 37 kgs. I have a plastic sledge which I use for deer stalking i.e. to load the carcass onto to drag it out from the bush. This would probably work to transport the outboard on down to the water to save the back.