As it is habit of mine to explore the various rib makers whereever I travel, got special permission from my extremely lovely lady Steinunn to spend few minutes visiting RedBay factory and met up with Gary as Willk was kind enough to arrange (thanks
), Gary was very busy as was Tom (the owner) as they where taking StormForce 11 cabin rib to maiden cruise and handover to her new owner from Sweden, and Gary offered me to come along, very short trip only 3 minutes 5 minutes tops...... well I told him my wife where sitting in the car and if I tell her boat trip of 5 minutes it means an hour
so I went to the car and we drove to the slipway where I met up with the Swedish guys and where I found out that he bought his first boat second hand from Iceland (Ísafjörđur) not more of that for now.
Tom took us all on the boat out in a reasonable swelling waves, truly good to take her out on, and I must say she is well suited for passanger transportation although I would prefer open RIB for SeaSafari, twelve seats and two shock absorber seats for the helmsman and navigator.
After nearly 45 minutes cruise swapping helmsmans Tom came to me and told me to take over the helm..... no chance of saying no
..... so I took the helm and reved her two Yammis up to 4.000 and she got on plane almost instantly and cruised 32 knoths and the seats is somewhat something and now I want shock absorber seats to my new RIB project
, well back to reality and I tried her in the waves and it really didn´t matter how I took her through the waves she was soft but little bit wet as splashing on the windscreen but didn´t matter as she is a cabin RIB. After playing for 15 minutes which seemed only be 2 minutes tops Tom took over the helm and took her back to shore.
I want to than Gary and Tom for their kindness of showing "competitor" their facilities and heart of operation and taking me out on their Stormforce 11 (flybridge version) and not to mentione the pation of my wife for spending over an hour in the car
Bogi
