To buy or not to buy

[tjoe]

I am recently retired and have an idea that I would like to do a bit of boating lake and sea.
I am looking at family cruising and some fishing. Would a rib be a good buy? or should I look at other options. I would like something that would be easy to launch, retrive & tow.
Any advice or comments would be welcome.
tjoe

[9D280]

Tjoe,

Firstly, welcome to ribnet!

That's one of these nice open questions that will generate as many answers as peple who answer it! I guess there are a few things which will help steer you towards the right craft:

- Cruising - how far do you plamn to go in a day, do you want to do overnight stops? (i.e how fast does it need to go & does it need a cabin?)

- "Family cruising" - how many? Ages ? experience? If it's once every third eclipse of the sun & they are big & ugly enough to sit on the toobs, you won't need as big a boat for the fact you are alone or only a coupe of you most of the time versus taking 4 kids with you every weekend.

- "easy to launch & recover" - Light would be a good start, but a sizeable chunk of that equation is down to the trailer - My current rib was on a trailer that needed three people (one in waders) to get it on / off the trailer into the water. I replaced the trailer, same boat, and can now do it single handed without even unhitching from the car 90% of the time.

- Easy to tow again is mostly down to the trailer setup, and again depending on your car, the weight may become a significant factor.


Ribs are good for blasting through pretty much any sort of rubbish the weather will throw at you, and something i nthe sub 5m length will likely be able to be handled easily by you & one other but at the same time because of the tubes the interior space versus a solid boat of the same footprint will be significantly less.


So, to help our advisers, here's a few questions:

- what's the max. tow weight of your car? (written in the handbook)
- how many people do you recokon you'll have at any one time?
- How far do you envisage going?
- I guess you have been afloat before, what's your previous craft experience (anything you liked before?)

If you haven't been out in a rib before, might be worth finding a local sailing school & see if they'll either hire you a rib for a couple of hours, and see if it's what you think it will be. Not wishing to speak on behalf of our Irish colleagues here, but maybe could volunteer to crew for one of them on a cruise if ther'es a spare seat?

You may find if most of your boating is on inland lakes, a SIB might be a better bet - they have a lot less draught, and are substantially lighter.

[Jizm]

Useful info from this forum:

http://rib.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8130

http://rib.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8127

[Adam 005]

i would give ribcraft a ring and take a look at the new 5m they do

[Poly]

Would a rib be a good buy? or should I look at other options

Originally Posted by Adam 005

i would give ribcraft a ring and take a look at the new 5m they do

wow that's a jump, probably nothing wrong with that boat - but the guy doesn't even know if he wants/needs a rib and now we are dictating to him which brand and size is best

[Hightower]

I'd wait till the Spring/Summer and visit a couple of shows or see if I could be crew on someones boat to see what suits you.

[Eugene Wixted]

Hi tjoe,

As has been said you will get plenty of advice on this forum but you could also try posting on www.powerboat.ie to make contact with boatowners in the Dublin area who can advise you on what options are available locally. (Facilities,training,crewing etc)

[markg]

i would try a sib first joe and see if you and your family get on with it ok, if you do you may well trade up and get a rib, thats what we did and probably a few others here, sibs are easier to transport and launch

[Knot Yet]

Hi Joe - for what it's worth we started with a Fishing Boat - 5m powered by a 60hp - then late last year we purchased a RIB (half the price of the fishing boat) - we will be selling the fishing boat later this year - great boat but the RIB does everything we required and more and we can't justify both.

We have a 4m SIB powered by a 25hp as well - another cracking buy and much recommended - the RIB is better for rougher water though - from my limited experience

Good luck - I'm really hooked on the RIB - fun, safe and very forgiving with idiots - much more so than my little used but shiny fishing boat

[neilda]

Originally Posted by Knot Yet

....the RIB - fun, safe and very forgiving with idiots

Not all idiots....! :laugh:

[Knot Yet]

Originally Posted by neilda

Not all idiots....! :laugh:

True - luckily our RIB has been very generous with my inept ability