BIG Aluminum Rib Project? Thoughts?

[islandflyer]

I worked on the 1992 America's Cup boats one summer, they had been retrofitted for a tour operation in Nassau. There was a big tender there, "Ranger". Since then the operation has been in and out of different owners hands as well as the tender, where at some point it was retrofitted with solid aluminum tubes and I think for outboards.

It has recently come up for sale again, this time at quite a good price considering the amount of aluminum!?! It seems to be a 14m.

Any thoughts of removing the aluminum tubes and restoring with hypalon tubes and rigging with a few new engines? This would be to complement our business, Harbour Safaris.

Not an easy project for sure, but might be worth it? Thoughts?

How much would a 14m set of hypalon tubes cost, roughly?

[paintman]

Any pics of it as it now stands?
How are the aluminium tubes attached - has there been a lot of modification to do so & as a consequence would fitting inflatable tubes be straightforward or would it involve a lot of work?
If the aluminium tubes look OK & work is there any point in replacing them?

[paul tilley]

Sounds like an interesting and fairly easy job to do in our uk factory email paul@tidel.biz if you want to discus further

[office888]

Probably $20k for a new tube set...