F-Ribs And Sibs - Inflatable Boat Community

Hi all

47 yo from Denmark. Last year I bought an 11 foot aqua marina wooden foldable deck boat + a 9.9 2 stroke mariner. Primarily using it to pool around Aarhus bay/Djursland.

I like it so much that I am considering upgrading my setup with a bit larger boat/engine , to be able to explore some of the fjords and islands around Aarhus as well. Of course the big advantage of my current setup with a foldable boat + engine on a rack at the back of my car is not possible with a larger boat.

I am grateful for all the tips and advice on this forum, so thanks a lot to the creators/admins for creating this well maintained forum, with a nice helpful and constructive atmosphere

Looking forward to become a more active user in here.

Hi @Poulsen30,

Welcome to the forum, sounds like a nice rig you have there. What are you thinking of upgrading to?

Been rather quiet on here of late, hopefully traffic will pick up after lockdown ends and we can all go boating again.

Coincidentally we’ve just ordered a tiny Aqua Marina 298 ourselves.

Hi
Sounds good. Aqua Marina are great value for money imo.

I am considering a longer rib/sib 360cm or a bit more + a 20-25hp engine.
I could be fun to be able to pull a wake board etc., and get a bit more ‘reach’ on trip length.

But in that case I would need a trailer, which is a bit troublesome where I live. - the great thing about my current setup is that the boat + accessories fits in the trunk of my stationcar, and the motor goes on the outside rack :
https://www.watski.dk/Motorstll-bilkrok-112T4
Super convenient, but the rack carries a max load of 35kg, and my 9.9 is 34kg, which means that a 20hp is probably a no- go. Packing an engine inside the car seems a bit hard , or how do you guys go about that?

Liking your outboard rack...pretty neat.

Some years ago we modified an old Thule 9503 bike rack to carry our 44kg Suzuki 20. Never had the bottle to actually use it on the road though....just looked so wrong and definitely not legal!



Another option for transport if limited boot space is to put the motor etc. in the car and carry the folded boat on a tow bar mounted rack...plenty of suitable proprietary racks and boxes available here in the Uk.

https://www.roofbox.co.uk/tow-bar-boxes/

With regard to wakeboarding, we’ve easily towed toys and wakeboards behind a variety of sibs between 3.5 to 3.8m all with 20hp motors. For myself the current crop of 20hp motors at around 43 to 45kg are at my limit to lift and manhandle solo in and out of the car to transom.

Also to ease sliding the motor in/out of boot we knocked up a simple wheeled dolly to make life easier.

Maybe use an old sack truck to wheel your motor in and out of the car.

@harrison Great advice, thanks a lot! I need to look into those foldable tow bar racks/boxes that can hold a 20hp/~45kg motor.
On the other hand I think that mine may be able to lift the 45kg even though it is only approved for 35kg. It's not like i am going to drive to the riviera with it :-), only a couple of miles to the coast.

@Oldman Yes! I got one of those almost exactly similar from the guy I bought the motor from - he was a retired blacksmith :-) it's very convienient.

Hi @Poulsen30

Welcome to the forum from a fellow dane!

Great idea with the outboard rack. I looks a little bit wrong but I assume it is legal here in Denmark and why not - it is legal to carry two bicycles on the rack and they are about the same weight as my 8 hp 2 stroke Yamaha. Do you lock the outboard to the rack with a wire or something like that?