Rigid inflatable boat
A rigid inflatable boat, also rigid-hull inflatable boat or rigid-hulled inflatable boat, is a lightweight but high-performance and high-capacity boat constructed with a rigid hull bottom joined to side-forming air tubes that are inflated with air to high pressure to give the sides resilient rigidity along the boat's topsides. The design is stable, light, fast and seaworthy. The inflated collar acts as a life jacket, ensuring that the vessel retains its buoyancy, even if the boat is taking on water. The RIB is an evolutionary development of the inflatable boat with a rubberized fabric bottom that is stiffened with flat boards within the collar to form the deck or floor of the boat.
History
Origins in Wales
The concept of configuring a rigid hull surrounded by an inflated, compartmentalized buoyancy tube from prow to transom originated and evolved from the problems that plagued existing rubberized fabric bottom inflated motorboats: fabric wear-through and poor sea keeping due to lack of immersed hull structural rigidity. A solution was sought starting at Atlantic College, the first of now 18 United World Colleges, which had opened on the southern coast of Wales in 1962, founded partly by Kurt Hahn, the German educator who had earlier originated Outward Bound in Aberdovey Scotland during the Second World War for instilling ‘resilience’ and moral fortitude in youth.Development of the RIB was originally undertaken by students and staff under the direction of retired Royal Navy Admiral Desmond Hoare, who headed the 6th form college.
A series of experimental and prototype solutions for effectively combining a hard hull form with a pressurized, air-filled rubber infused nylon fabric sponson lasted for over a decade. The RHIB craft developed at Atlantic College served as an effective seafront activities safety and rescue boat for the college's fleet of sailing dinghies on the often challenging Bristol Channel, and the college went on to become an Inshore Lifeboat Station for the RNLI in 1963, carrying out countless rescues over the next 50 years.
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution had been operating entirely inflated small motorized boats for close to shore rescue recovery that were nautically limited in their capacity, range, endurance, sea keeping, sea worthiness and top speed.
The RNLI's "B-Class Atlantic Inshore Lifeboat" was named in honor of the college's role in its development. The Atlantic College Lifeboat Station was decommissioned by the RNLI in 2013. The video provides a visual historical summary.
In 1964, Rear-Admiral Hoare and his students at Atlantic College replaced the torn bottom of their sailing activity rescue inflatable boat with a plywood sheet glued to the inflatable tubes. This proved a successful modification but was rather uncomfortable at speed offshore, and so the hull was rebuilt with a shallow-vee bow entry transitioning to a nearly flat section stern. This boat was named Atlanta and later that year an Atlantic College RIB was displayed at the London Boat Show.
By 1966 the students had built a further five rigid inflatable boats – the Aphrodite and Triton for the college's own use, and the X1 and X2 which were made under a development agreement with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and were launched in 1965 by Queen Elizabeth II. They were taken by the RNLI for trials at Gorleston and Great Yarmouth from which they returned to Atlantic College in Spring 1967. X3 was an experimental vortex-lift hull funded by a private developer and was not greatly successful.
By that time Hoare had concluded that for the conditions under which they operated a boat of around long was optimum which led to X4, X5 and X6, and X7 to X8 to support lifeguards on local beaches.
All the above boats’ hulls were built from plywood. In summer 1968, student Paul Jefferies designed and constructed a hull from fiberglass, which was not a success due to lack of strength. However, that development led to the building of Psychedelic Surfer, a twin-engined RIB, built in three weeks by two college students for John Caulcutt, Graeme Dillon and Simon de’Ath to race in the 1969 Round Britain Powerboat Race, in which it finished 19th and became the darling the fleet.
From that time, the RNLI transferred development to its research centre in Cowes, who took the Atlantic College designs and developed from them the Atlantic 21 class of inshore lifeboats which entered service from 1970 through 2007. Atlantic 21-class lifeboat provides a class history of this vessel.
The first commercially saleable RIB was introduced in 1967 by Tony and Edward Lee-Elliott of Flatacraft, and patented by Admiral Desmond Hoare in 1969 after research and development at Atlantic College.
The first commercial RIB is believed to be the Avon Rubber Searider which was launched at the January 1969 London Boat Show.
The 108th Engineering Heritage Award by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers was presented to UWC Atlantic College on 30 July 2017 by Carolyn Griffiths, President of the IMeche, for its development of the X Alpha Rigid Inflatable Boat.
The definitive history of the development of the RHIB was written by David Sutcliffe, successor head of Atlantic College following Desmond Hoare’s retirement.
On Canada’s west coast Strait of Juan de Fuca near Race Rocks students of sister Pacific College along with Atlantic College sea rescue service grads in 1974 home built the first RHIB based on the Atlantic 21 surfing, open transom version in North America and the first inboard - outboard stern drive RHIB. These craft were loaned to the Pacific Region Cdn Coast Guard new inshore rescue boat service for trial and evaluation prior to CWLucas Hurricane fast hard hull inflatables being adopted by that service.
Introduction to North America
In the mid-1970s Avon tubes for two 21-foot RHIBs were ordered by the recently opened sister school of Atlantic College that had been established on the west coast of Canada, the Lester B. Pearson United World College of the Pacific, at Pedder Bay near Race Rocks, British Columbia in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Three former Atlantic College students built the first hull during the summer of 1974. Three more graduates who likewise were trained as RNLI inshore lifeboat coxswains worked at the school during its inaugural year and coached some Pacific College students to build and operate the two boats, which were referred to as X-27, propelled by twin outboard engines and X-28, propelled by inboard-outboard stern drive.During summer, the college loaned their fast rescue craft to the Canadian Coast Guard on the west coast, which was introducing rigid inflatables into its then new summer seasonal inshore rescue boat service operation. Meanwhile, CCG inshore rescue stations on the Great Lakes were started up utilizing 5.4 metre Avon Seariders in the late 1970s. The CCG's inshore rescue boat crews included university students during the summer, in part due to the success of the student crews operating these ever-buoyant rescue craft at the Atlantic and Pearson Colleges.
Introduction to the southern hemisphere
The first inflatable boat manufacturer in the Southern Hemisphere is Lancer Industries Ltd, of Auckland, New Zealand in 1971. The founder Chris Marks had visited Europe and brought the concept to NZ. He pioneered many of the initial inflatable boat construction and material methods. Lancers innovate designs and engineering approach to inflatable design still applies and the company holds many patents. Lancer is noted for manufacturing large RIBs, in 1987 it provided tubes for a 17m RIB and then 19 the late 1990s Protector of New Zealand built two 20m RIB support boats for the Americas Cup which were tubes by Lancer.In 1976 Steve Schmidt introduced the RHIB concept to New Zealand under the brand Naiad. While it was slow to be accepted for the first few years, it gained momentum with police, Rescue, marine farmers and Government agencies.
The Naiad RHIB developed by Steve Schmidt differed from the existing RHIB designs in two ways. It had a twin skin, incorporating an air retaining inner and a robust replaceable outer. These were held in place by tracks. This system allowed for easy removal of the outer or inner for repair or replacement. The other feature was the unusually deep variable V hull with extreme turned down chines aft.
In 1978 the demand grew for more protection in the form of an integral cabin and outboard well to protect the crew in adverse conditions. Though basic to start with cabins soon became more sophisticated. Naiad were one of the early pioneers in designing RHIBs and models range from 2.5m to 23m.
In the 2010s, the traditional RHIB was reimagined using High-Density Polyethylene as the hull material. HDPE, an engineered polymer, possesses a number of properties which make it a superior marine construction material for RHIB's. Of note, it absorbs vibration leading to a quieter, more comfortable ride, with less slamming load transferred to operators. HDPE does not corrode, or suffer from electrolysis, reducing maintenance costs and increasing operational availability. It was the PFG Group, of Hobart, Tasmania, who recognised and applied the advantages into RHIB construction. In partnership with One2Three Naval Architects, Stuart Downham of PFG developed a range of RHIB designs and builds which have such significantly favourable characteristics in the water that the future of RHIB's and high performance small watercraft will shift towards HDPE as the preferred hull material.
In 1979, Gemini Marine based in Cape Town started building RIBs for the local market. Early on they joined forces with the NSRI and started to design and build rescue craft for the South African Sea Rescue Institution.