small rib racing

[jackeen]

Following on from cardiff's racing what struck me there was there was no "small" class for ribs except zapcats

there was the circuit racing with 70 hp's

OCR racing with I think 1.3 and 2 ltr engines and some other class

tiny ones for kids 15hp - great looking fun

and probably some others as well

but no smallish class for ribs. Why ?????

Is it just that theres no interest, or why bother when the circuit boats move like shit off a shovel and the likes of the small phantoms are fairly cheap I would think. Even honda have the 150hp class.

[Alan]

There did used to be RIB F3 which was upto 90hp. Tohatsu even tried one design series of 6m RIB & 90hp o/b but it all died a death through lack of interest. Think its one of these vicious circle things - not enough people in the class so people are discouraged from entering or staying in it.

[Adam Younger]

We have had a few enquiries about using our 6.5M RIB for a type of F3 racing - which is what boat number 2 was originally built for. Also had some enquiries from abroad that may lead to something on the race side.

I think it would provide a great racing boat / class with say a 115hp engine. Also would work really well if the boats still had to provide seating for four people so that they could eb used for other things than racing. Perhaps even make a race series where some of the events include a cruise / navigation exercise.

Whatever way (or size) you go racing it is still never going to be cheap - so it makes sense with a RIB to be able to use it for things other than racing. Even more so for the smaller class where budgets are going to be tighter.

Adam