Happy with your Achilles Hypalon dink?

[Stephan]

Originally Posted by CSY Man

Sent him an email with my HIN and asked where the boat is made, he said:
LSI is what I have, the air floor models, looks like the rest is made in China then.

Achilles has some models that are built in China and some models that are built in Japan. Every Achilles boat built in China goes back to Japan for inspection, before it is packaged and before it is shipped to a Distributor or Dealer.

The fabric, itself, as well as the valves and other fittings, are all shipped to China for production. Not cheap to do that and all sourced in Japan.

That approach is less about cost savings from labor or from lower quality materials [simply not the case]. Their fabricating in China and trans-shipping to Japan for boxing and inspection reduces any savings. The reason is more about managing production, since the Achilles boat division is a fairly small division of a much, much larger parent company. Google Achilles Japan and see what they do. You will likely be surprised (maybe tickled).

With current economic sanctions on Chinese sourced product and, possibly higher tariffs coming on January 15th, there will likely be a reason to buy Japan-built boats versus the China-built boats.

I have not seen a higher failure rate of claim rate on models that are built in China versus models that are built in Japan.

The failure rate of Achilles boats, as a line, is a lower percentage of sales in comparison to other brands I see. However, few brands are higher than 2% of production. Typically about 1%-1.5% of production see a failure during the warranty period and, in my years of seeing boats the majority of issues are from under-inflation of the tubes (negligence).

Since I started in this business 35 years ago, I have sold over 70,000 inflatables. Many different brands.

My name is Stephan and I own an Achilles HB-280DX that was built in China, shipped to Japan for inspection and have not had an issue with her ever. She sits in the davits of our Lagoon cat when my wife and I are not dinking about.

If I could not afford an Achilles, my next choice would be a fully welded PVC Zodiac product [only one built in Ayguesvives, France] where the seams, d-rings, transom and all attachments are welded. Though the new Chinese-built Zodiac Cadets are a close second, despite it's glued-on fittings and glued transom cuff.

Happy Holidays to you all.

S-

[CSY Man]

Thanks Stephan, good to know and good writeup.

(Kind of gives me the warm and fuzzy for having bought the Achilles )

Look at the picture above and give me your opinion on the wrinkled bottom.
Not enough air in the tubes, keel, floor..?

[Stephan]

Originally Posted by CSY Man

Thanks Stephan, good to know and good writeup.
(Kind of gives me the warm and fuzzy for having bought the Achilles )
Look at the picture above and give me your opinion on the wrinkled bottom.
Not enough air in the tubes, keel, floor..?

CSY.
Hard to answer your question, without having the boat in front of me to 'play with'. It looks under-inflated.

I'd want to see the order of MBT main buoyancy tube inflation, the HP air floor inflation & installation and then the keel inflation......as well as the pressure reached in each step.
I'd want to see how the HP floor fits into the doubler area (tube to floor juncture) and see if is it properly positioned and properly pressurized.

I have owned and tested air floor boats before (many) and there is a trade-off in ease-of-inflation over general rigidity of the bottom & convenience. For some, it is an acceptable compromise. For those who expect "Donzi performance" out of a boat with an air floor that is engineered to be a tender and not to be rocket-ship, well I simply want to be polite. Life is full of compromises.

Make sure that the chambers are all fully inflated (tubes, floor and air keel). Maybe even hyper-inflate just a bit and then test to see how you like the boat's performance.

It is not a sport-boat/speedboat. It is a tender intended to provide transport and convenience in ease of inflation and stowage.

If you require further assistance, I suggest you contact the Dealer directly (which I know was Defender). It has a pretty large and experienced team dedicated to the inflatable boat arena and they have been doing it a while.

Sincerely,
Stephan

[exMaggieDrum]

I bought an Achilles Hypalon dink last year. Model LSI-310E LGY


It is not well worn or used but I am very pleased with the quality and it was just what I wanted and expected. I bought it from Inflatablesboat.net in California. They had good prices, free shipping, and support.



Mine has the inflatable floor which I have found to be very usable and firm. And it allows me to roll it up without messing with boards. I had one with boards before (AB) and I ended up hating the boards. They flexed stepping on them and were a pain to install and take out. The bow board became impossible to get in though so I ended up not using it and AB support was non-existent. I also worried about chafe with the Hypalon where the boards seated along the edges. But I never had that issue for several years of offshore use with hundreds and hundreds of beach landings. I would not recommend AB though.



Good luck in your selection.


Cheers,
Joe

[CSY Man]

. Hard to answer your question, without having the boat in front of me to 'play with'. It looks under-inflated.

Confirmed.
Contacted Achilles and sent pics. The tech said to inflateit differently, certain sequence with
up to 9 psi pressure. Will do.

Good luck in your selection.

Thx, happy with my selection, so far.

[eweb101]

I finally got my Achilles dinghy fixed. It had been leaking since I bought it. I followed your advise and got mad at the shop that was refusing to fix it. And it worked. Kind of. They did find that it was leaking slightly from under one of the factory-installed patches at the bow. They removed the patch, fixed the leak and put in a slightly larger patch.

The bad part was they said Achilles doesn't authorize any warranty work because their fabric is so good that it never has problems. No amount of me getting mad would get them to even submit the request so I ended up paying a couple hundred dollars for the fix.

At least it doesn't leak anymore. For the first time since I bought it.

[jen1722terry]

Great that you got the repair done.

An odder story: we have a 32 year-old Avon Redcrest that we use on our wharf here in Nova Scotia. The inflatable seat has always leaked slightly and needed a few pump strokes with each use. Then, this year, the seat stopped leaking. Weird, and we still can't figure out how. It's certainly not because I've lost weight.

Cheers!

Jenn and Terry

[jmschmidt]

As I said in an earlier response, I bought my Achilles (non-RIB) in 1978 and have towed it all over the State of Hawaii, in all kinds of seas, many times since with the painter attached to the welded on rubber towing ring on the nose . Other than having to build a new wooden floor for it five or ten years later (simple job, which has worked perfectly since) it has been an amazing product. Not a single factory weld, including hand-hold attachments or the towing ring has come loose.

Contrast that with the brand new "AB..." something (made in Italy, I think) RIB that my charter manager in the BVI bought for my power cat (at my expense, $5,500). Within the first week several of the grab and lifting straps ripped loose and the nose welds started to delaminate. If the towing ring hadn't been through-bolted to the hard hull it probably would have pulled out under way just getting out of the marina.

[CSY Man]

Originally Posted by eweb101

I finally got my Achilles dinghy fixed. It had been leaking since I bought it. I followed your advise and got mad at the shop that was refusing to fix it. And it worked. Kind of. They did find that it was leaking slightly from under one of the factory-installed patches at the bow. They removed the patch, fixed the leak and put in a slightly larger patch.

The bad part was they said Achilles doesn't authorize any warranty work because their fabric is so good that it never has problems. No amount of me getting mad would get them to even submit the request so I ended up paying a couple hundred dollars for the fix.

At least it doesn't leak anymore. For the first time since I bought it.

Wow, that is weird: Your dink is covered by warranty and Achilles don’t honor their own warranty..?
No, I never got mad at or yelled at the dealer, they are pawns. Call CS at Achilles USA and have them explain to you why they are trying to f...k you out a covered repair. Seriously.

[CSY Man]

I did partially deflate my brand new dink, then pumped it using a different sequence.
Bottom not as wrinkled as the first time.