Is it time to move on
Posted: 06 May 2021, 03:46
Hi, I have had a SIB now for 5 years or so. I have thus far done my boating on a strict budget. I have what some would call a retro or classic boat, a 1978 Lomac 350, Hypalon with Plywood Keel and floor. Until recently I have run a succession of period 2 stoke outboards, including Chryslers and Mercs. I have spent many hours messing and resurrecting them. In truth spending many more hours in my workshop than out on the water. This has changed recently when my Dad bought me a new Tohatsu 20 HP EFI, which is truly excellent and a welcome revelation to our boating experience! I did realise shortly after taking delivery of this motor, that at some point I would be keeping the motor and changing the boat, a new experience for me!
This thought has very much come to the fore as last weekend when I used the boat on the local river I noticed that I am leaking air between two of the chambers. The boat is 3 chambers, port and starboard tubes and a bow tube. I am defiantly leaking air between the port tube and the bow. This has to be a dreaded baffle leak and I know it compromises the designed safety of the vessel.
so I now have a few questions.
firstly, in the short term, how likely is it that I can fix this with some tubeseal or something like that? The valves for these two chambers are very handily either side of the suspect baffle and I am going to see if I can borrow some form of endoscope/viewing rig to have a look what is going on in there. I suspect it is the seam coming away, and I do wonder what that indicates for the general integrity of the boat structure; though there are no other signs that it is about to fall apart. Especially given its age it is very good and sound, holds air indefinitely and has never been patched.
If I could fashion a repair to buy some time I could then maybe afford to get another boat... It would be ridiculous to have this shiny new outboard and no boat to put it on!
Looking further ahead I wonder what I should be looking for as a replacement.
We are a family of 5, 2 grown up children and one 12 year old. We rarely all go in the boat together but it has been known. We use it to potter about and explore, look at wild life, a bit of sea fishing and dolphin spotting. We live just about as inland as it is possible to be in England so we also use it to explore local rivers and waterways. We like to noodle about, but it is important to us to be able to plane as we like to cover some ground too. Chances are our Older children are going to spend less and less time with us in these pursuits, but our 12 year old has just taken up sailing. It would therefore be handy if our boat was suitable to be used as a safety boat perhaps?
We have a caravan and this accompanies us to the coast, so towing a boat trailer is out of the question. Our tow car is a LWB VW transporter T5 though with 100kg roof carrying capacity, so roof topping is an option.
So the thing is, I don't want to be changing my motor, 20hp 4 stroke short shaft tiller. I don't want to go smaller than 3.5m maybe a little bigger. What do I go for. I am inclined to go for another SIB, but If there are any RIBs that I could roof top and that would suit my motor I would be interested. The budget restraints mean I could possibly look at a new SIB but I would almost certainly be looking at a second hand RIB.
I believe the motor could easily be converted to R/C and it is something that I would maybe like to do in the future. I would like to be able to use my future boat with the tiller if we were popping it in the river for a quick Sunday afternoon trip to the pub. But if we were taking it down to Cornwall for a week and paying to keep it at the harbour it would be nice to have the options of fitting a steering console and maybe a little more civilised cruising.
I would very much appreciate, views, opinions and experience on all these aspects. I guess the most urgent is what I do with my boat right now! we are booked to go to Cornwall at the end of the month, I can't countenance that without the boat!
many thanks
@ndy
This thought has very much come to the fore as last weekend when I used the boat on the local river I noticed that I am leaking air between two of the chambers. The boat is 3 chambers, port and starboard tubes and a bow tube. I am defiantly leaking air between the port tube and the bow. This has to be a dreaded baffle leak and I know it compromises the designed safety of the vessel.
so I now have a few questions.
firstly, in the short term, how likely is it that I can fix this with some tubeseal or something like that? The valves for these two chambers are very handily either side of the suspect baffle and I am going to see if I can borrow some form of endoscope/viewing rig to have a look what is going on in there. I suspect it is the seam coming away, and I do wonder what that indicates for the general integrity of the boat structure; though there are no other signs that it is about to fall apart. Especially given its age it is very good and sound, holds air indefinitely and has never been patched.
If I could fashion a repair to buy some time I could then maybe afford to get another boat... It would be ridiculous to have this shiny new outboard and no boat to put it on!
Looking further ahead I wonder what I should be looking for as a replacement.
We are a family of 5, 2 grown up children and one 12 year old. We rarely all go in the boat together but it has been known. We use it to potter about and explore, look at wild life, a bit of sea fishing and dolphin spotting. We live just about as inland as it is possible to be in England so we also use it to explore local rivers and waterways. We like to noodle about, but it is important to us to be able to plane as we like to cover some ground too. Chances are our Older children are going to spend less and less time with us in these pursuits, but our 12 year old has just taken up sailing. It would therefore be handy if our boat was suitable to be used as a safety boat perhaps?
We have a caravan and this accompanies us to the coast, so towing a boat trailer is out of the question. Our tow car is a LWB VW transporter T5 though with 100kg roof carrying capacity, so roof topping is an option.
So the thing is, I don't want to be changing my motor, 20hp 4 stroke short shaft tiller. I don't want to go smaller than 3.5m maybe a little bigger. What do I go for. I am inclined to go for another SIB, but If there are any RIBs that I could roof top and that would suit my motor I would be interested. The budget restraints mean I could possibly look at a new SIB but I would almost certainly be looking at a second hand RIB.
I believe the motor could easily be converted to R/C and it is something that I would maybe like to do in the future. I would like to be able to use my future boat with the tiller if we were popping it in the river for a quick Sunday afternoon trip to the pub. But if we were taking it down to Cornwall for a week and paying to keep it at the harbour it would be nice to have the options of fitting a steering console and maybe a little more civilised cruising.
I would very much appreciate, views, opinions and experience on all these aspects. I guess the most urgent is what I do with my boat right now! we are booked to go to Cornwall at the end of the month, I can't countenance that without the boat!
many thanks
@ndy
