F-Ribs And Sibs - Inflatable Boat Community

Hi
Been away from all things nautical for a while, last boat was a 17' Check Marine Pilot dory with a 35hp Suzuki or 75hp Johnson outboards depending what I was doing and with which I parted back in 2008.
Recently my wife has discovered that she actually likes small boats, even though she gets seasick on the ferry from Ijmuden to Newcastle and with another forumite posting up pics and videos of him and his wife with a rib on Loch Lomond she said "I want to do that..."
Inwardly I said "Yipppeeee!" as I had resigned myself to not being able to get back on the water with her aversion to ferries which lead me to getting rid of the Dory.
Now she has seen what a little SIB can do and the Honwave T40 looks like a prospect, I still have one of my outboards left, a Honda 2.5, and it will do until I can get a licence here in Belgium and then get something around 20hp, in Belgium without a licence we are restricted to a length of 15m and 20km/h in speed, the 2.5 Honda should never be able to exceed the 20km/h unless going down hill with a following wind ;)

So, still looking into things and doing due diligence before putting down the cash, we spend our time between Scotland and Belgium and a little fold up boat for us and the kids/grandkids that we can carry with us sounds good.
Alistair.

Hi Alistair, Welcome aboard

Wow, thanks for a fantastic and interesting introduction.
The Honwaves are superb sibs, nothing wrong with the ally floor sibs, but personally I prefer the high pressure V hull T38ie over the big brute T40, purely for the ease of handling, storage room required and ease of inflation, either way they’re both fantastic.

I didn’t know that about boat length and speed restrictions, always great when people share local info.. thanks!

Enjoy the forum, it’s still a little quiet on here at the moment but we’re slowly getting back upto speed.

Martin

Thanks for the welcome Martin
I blame it on @Bigplumbs and his videos.
Balloch on Loch Lomond is my home town and I still have connections there, my father had a 12ft clinker built tender with a Stuart Turner 1.5hp 2stroke inboard engine which we kept in various places around Loch Lomond, latterly I was allowed to take the boat out on my own and with friends.

When we moved away from Balloch to Wick dad sold the boat as he did not want me going out into the wild north sea I went to work for Decca as a radar tech and so got out on a lot of fishing boats of all sizes.
Later got an ex marines 6m dory/rigid raider which I used for diving and fishing and then my brother and I got the Check Marine Pilot and used that for fishing.

In 2019 we went on holiday with friends to Friesland and as part of the holiday I hired a 6m Sloop and took my wife and friends out for a tour on the canals - it was the only bad day of the holiday with strong winds and some rain, crossing the Morra meer (lake) the waves were about 1m in hight and my wife loved it, then she has gone out on the tourist boats on Loch Lomond and wants to explore more and not be restricted to the timetable of those.
In Hindeloopen Friesland:

The Admiral getting her first turn at the helm


Since seeing Bigplumbs videos, I have been looking locally and can get a T40 for €1600 (£1330) just over the border in Holland, or for €1700 in Germany which seems to be comparable to the UK for price.