I live on the west coast of the US and have done some commrecial fishing from time to time. Every once in a while even in these slow 3-10 knot fishing craft we hit logs in violent seas. Has any one hit any thing in a rib while at speed. If so how does the rib fair. Looking for feed back on colissions with any thing. Or any info on this would be appriciated.
Ermm hitting anything substantial with a fibreglass powerboat, be it rib or hardboat at speed is going to cause damage, probably catastrophic damage at that. Perhaps if hitting logs/deadheads is a real concern you ought to consider an aluminium hulled boat. Would that be a bit more robust?
I would expect the damage to a fibreglass hull to vary from light to heavy depending on the angle, speed etc - however, the gearbox of an outboard or inboard is likely to suffer at the very least failure or even be removed by a full speed colision with a large object.
Alot of the rivers & lakes around here (in the Canadian Shield are strewn with rocks, logs & dead heads just beneath the surface. They are rarely if ever marked with bouys. Only a few of the more travelled rivers & lakes have hydrographic charts available. For the most part only topographic maps are available, the topos can give you some idea of areas that might be particulary hairy.
When covering stretches that are new or fairly new to me I'll keep a very close eye on whatever charts are available. I've come to know a few of my favorite some local rivers systems well enough where I can now open it up for 30-40 mile stretch whereas before I used to have to crawl the whole way.
With logs or deadheads I find that my SIB will typically bounces up & over or to the side of them (even at a minimal planing speed). With rocks, it is almost always the outboard that will strike rather than the boat. I never lock the outboard in the down position.
One other benefit with a boat like a SIB that has you sitting very close to the water level is that you can more readily see little nuances in the water surface that would indicate where reefs and shoals may be lurking.
I regularly hit large objects at speed on the Thames.
They clunk the hull loudly but have never done any damage.
However, a wheel and tyre floating just under the surface took off part of the skeg, and a big bit of rope tore off a propeller blade.
A large televeison hit at 45 knots did no damage, however last night I narrowly avoided a large metal beer keg under London Bridge which could have been nasty.
Generally though the chunks of wood which are very common here on the river seems to do no harm.
