Inflatable Dinghy Air Pumps

[beetle]

I have an Achilles 10' inflatable dinghy (with a hard floor), and two Bravo foot pumps (one big, one little). The big one has died again and I took the pump apart to see what was going on - in the course of finding a small circlip-type washer that had fallen off (the washer holds the little rubber in/out flaps in place on the inlet/outlet holes), I noted that the spring inside is plain steel and heavily rusted, and while the exterior stainless bands holding the bellows fabric in place are nice, the bands inside the pump are cheap pot metal that are also rusting out.

question: what are folks finding works particularly well as a pump for their inflatable dinghy?

I'd prefer to stay with a manual pump (foot pump is ideal), an electric pump is a possibility but that's also just one more thing to break... and I'm not impressed with the Bravo pumps at this point.

I searched around the site with the Google search tool and didn't run across a discussion of dinghy pumps. If I missed such a discussion, I'll gladly be pointed to it.

- rob/beetle

[Jim Cate]

G'Day Rob,

I broke/wore out several Bravo pumps over the years and agree that they are a bit lacking!

When we bought our current RIB (Gemini) it came with a vertical axis hand pump... sorta like a bicycle pump on steroids. It's double acting (pumps on both up and down strokes), it's all plastic and I thought it looked like crap. To my surprise it works better than the foot pumps ever did (at least for me) and has now lasted around 6 years. Unfortunately we're half way around the world from the boat just now, so I can't quote the manufacturer's name, but you might have a look at such devices.

In reality, we use an electric pump for inflating/deflating from scratch when possible, but the manual one works just fine... just slower!

Cheers,

[capn_billl]

I have one of the plastic vertical pumps also. It's actually faster with less effort than the foot pumps. And to rebuild it one o-ring and some grease, and its good as new.

[Alecadi]

So far we are using the manual pump coming with the (new) dinghy. I was surprised as how fast and easy it was to inflate it... even the Admiral has to admit, after she tried by herself, that in fact it was not a big deal...

[Tellie]

Though I carry a foot pump on board I use a DeWalt 18V cordless vacuum most of the time. Since I carry 18V tools on board any way it's a natural and of course doubles as a wet/vac. I just took an old foot pump fill tube with the tube attachment at one end and taped the other to the vacuums hose. Placed the hose on the output side of the vac and it fills my 11.5 Avon on half a charge pretty fast. Easy to move around, light weight and saves a ton of pumping.
Amazon.com: DEWALT DC500 2-Gallon 12-to-18-Volt Cordless/Corded Wet/Dry Vacuum: Home Improvement

[Cotemar]

I also have and like the vertical double acting hand pump.
Works great and is fast.

Hand Air Pump

[Alecadi]

Originally Posted by Cotemar

I also have and like the vertical double acting hand pump.
Works great and is fast.

Hand Air Pump

YEAP that the one I got with the dinghy.
quite efficient and effortless
I don't know about reliability
I'll tell you later about it

[Free Agent]

For a foot pump it's the Bravo:

For reliability I'd roll with a hand pump.

Haven't seen a bellows-type pump yet that is all that good, though the Bravo has a good rep.
When ours pukes it'll be a hand pump.