Whats the advantages of Hypalon guys ?,I'm new to ribs and looking at getting a Zodiac 340 ,price difference is about £600 ,is it worth it ,Oh,and i'm not great at maintaining stuff .
Whats the advantages of Hypalon guys ?,I'm new to ribs and looking at getting a Zodiac 340 ,price difference is about £600 ,is it worth it ,Oh,and i'm not great at maintaining stuff .
Personally for £600 I'd go hypalon. Much more durable, easier to repair, more UV stable, better resale value. All imo
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With Dave on this but having said that for my sib it was a 1000 more 1500 in PVC with a 5 year warranty so opted PVC to see how it fairs I do know one with the same material as mine over 10 years old seen it in the flesh and as good as new used extensively, but there are different specs mine is classed as heavy duty cheaper specs might not last.
Is the zodiac pvc or polyeurothane?
I was recently at the XS factory and they offer polyeurothane or hypalon and claim newer polyeurothane boats are much better than earlier ones as the material is different to the earlier stuff so the glue doesn't suffer uv degradation the way it used to. They are also heat welding the seams which has to be better.
We were having a club boat retubed at a large discount due to premature failure of the glue in its polyeurothane tubes. The boat was 7 years old and although the seams were failing due to uv the actual material had fared better than the 3 ribcrafts the club has which are younger boats, the pu material is definitely more abrasion resistant than hypalon. XS explained that early polyeurothane allowed uv to penetrate degrading the glue but claim that problem has been addressed now.
I'd imagine if kept inside when not in use there would be little chance of uv degradation.
The club committee decided to go for hypalon for the replacement tubes.
I think I'd prefer hypalon personally but if finances dictated otherwise I wouldn't be unduly worried about polyeurothane tubes on a new boat
Both are good but have different characteristics. PVC is less rubbery and makes a very rigid tube, hypalon is positively bouncy in comparison. Hypalon will stand cutting abrasion better, eg. sharp harbour walls or barnacles.
For a sib, I'd choose PVC, it makes a firmer structure, hypalon sibs are a bouncy castle. For a rib it's not so important because the hull provides rigidity.
Personally, I find repairing PVC is easier since it does not require abrading.
I wonder why you want a Zodiac 340 RIB... do you really mean the GRP hull RIB or a SIB? The RIB version is very expensive even in PVC and something of a niche boat as in that length a SIB will do most the RIB will at a far cheaper price. Add in Hypalon which I thought was more like £850-£1200 more depending on dealer and that's staggeringly expensive for 3.4m.
At current prices you could buy a new Honwave 3.5 alloy floor SIB say every 7-8yrs and cover a 30yr period for the cost of one Zodiac 340 Hypalon RIB.
Unless you 100% need the hard hall underneath I'd consider that.
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