North Atlantic Inflatables and other Aluminum RIBs

[JK n Smitty]

Originally Posted by chouliha

Just a follow up. We have a unpainted AB 10' UL. Into our 5th year full times with the RIB. 3 summer in sea of Cortez, Mexico. Now when you think hot anywhere that's one freakin hot place! Often into or close to 100 degrees on a daily basis. Never did we have an issue with the floor being to hot. It's in the water and only as hot as the water is. I fished just about every day with it and never wore shoes.

Would we buy it again...... YES with even looking at another brand.

How many dinghies of the one you purchased have we seen since departing in 2005? Zero

Lots of west marine, AB, Avon, etc.

Good luck with it

Chuck
Jacaranda
Panama

Thanks for the feedback. I wonder if the reason yours doesn't get hot is because it's the single floor? I had asked the sales guy about the double floor model and he said it did get hot. He didn't really have a reason to lie to me. It was the same guy that sold me the Highfield. He carries both lines. It was almost $2K more for the AB. Hopefully the Highfield will perform well. We shall see.

[chouliha]

Originally Posted by colemj

Yet, if you were cruising in Australia and Asia, you would see tons of Highfield dinghies and zero West Marine, etc. I don't follow your logic there.



How hot does the bare aluminum get in the sun when the dinghy is not in the water (on the beach or in the davits)? I know the bare aluminum walkway on our bimini gets so hot to blister skin within seconds.



Mark

Mark

Excellent point about the dink out of the water and how hot it gets. We have never got into the dink before we launched it but I guess that the hound most likely would jump in before running it into the water. Being pet less I never even thought about that.

Glad to hear that they are very common in other parts of the world and have not just shown up on the scene recently

Chuck

[chouliha]

Originally Posted by JK n Smitty

Thanks for the feedback. I wonder if the reason yours doesn't get hot is because it's the single floor? I had asked the sales guy about the double floor model and he said it did get hot. He didn't really have a reason to lie to me. It was the same guy that sold me the Highfield. He carries both lines. It was almost $2K more for the AB. Hopefully the Highfield will perform well. We shall see.

I think you could be right about the double floor being hot in the heat of the summer. The second floor is raised up so the water is not cooling it. Since we have the UL version there is no floor and when we step down we can immediately tell the water temp!

But there are a number of times we wished we had a double floor (flat floor) like we had on our old Avon. Carrying fuel and water or groceries everything either rolls aft or sits at a very step angle.

But we also say well it's either that or another 20lbs.

I look forward to hearing about your views once you had a chance to use your dink a bit

Safe sailing

Chuck