Sib age

[Tommy c]

How old is too old for a 2nd hand sib? From a purchase point of view?
Thanks

[Wazzajnr]

How long is a piece of string?
It depends how it's been looked after and the quality when new.
A good make well looked after could be good for well over 10 years.
A cheapy left out in the sun and covered in saltwater could be ruined in a couple of years.
With pvc boats, anything over 5 years and I would be inspecting the seams very closely for separation as the glue can start to go off then.

[Fenlander]

There has been far more said on the forum about Zodiac PVC SIB glue failure than other makes... not because Zodiac fail more but I think they tend to be kept longer and with their high prices owners hope they are more of an investment than a budget SIB.

A Zodiac dealer once told me they thought 18yrs was the glue life of a PVC Zodiac/Bombard and experience on this forum has seen many suffer problems at 18-20yrs old.

So my thought if buying is to look very carefully at anything over 10yrs old and for anything 15+yrs old to consider you will probably still own it when the seams start to fail.

From what I've seen on Honwaves and the like they often go brown before seams fail and/or folks just regard them as having lived their life and scrap them.

The Gurnard scrapped his Quicksilver last year I think rather than pass on something with iffy seams... can't remember how old that was though.