Rigid inflatable boat
boat with rigid hull and inflatable tubes
A rigid inflatable boat (RIB), also rigid-hull inflatable boat or rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB), is a lightweight but high-performance and high-capacity boat constructed with a rigid hull bottom joined to side-forming air tubes that are inflated with air to high pressure to give the sides resilient rigidity along the boat's topsides. The design is stable, light, fast and seaworthy. The inflated collar ensures that the vessel retains its buoyancy, even if the boat is taking on water. The RIB is an evolutionary development of the inflatable boat with a rubberized fabric bottom that is stiffened with flat boards within the collar to form the deck or floor of the boat.
History
Origins in Wales
The concept of configuring a rigid hull surrounded by an inflated, compartmentalized buoyancy tube from prow to transom originated and evolved from the problems that plagued existing rubberized fabric bottom inflated motorboats: fabric wear-through and poor sea keeping due to lack of immersed hull structural rigidity. A solution was sought starting at Atlantic College, the first of now 18 United World Colleges, which had opened on the southern coast of Wales in 1962, founded partly by Kurt Hahn, the German educator who had earlier originated Outward Bound in Aberdovey Scotland during the Second World War for instilling ‘resilience’ and moral fortitude in youth.
Development of the RIB was originally undertaken by students and staff under the direction of retired Royal Navy Admiral Desmond Hoare, who headed the 6th form (senior secondary) college.
A series of experimental and prototype solutions for effectively combining a hard hull form with a pressurized, air-filled rubber infused nylon fabric (Hypalon) sponson lasted for over a decade. The RHIB craft developed at Atlantic College served as an effective seafront activities safety and rescue boat for the college's fleet of sailing dinghies on the often challenging Bristol Channel, and the college went on to become an Inshore Lifeboat Station for the RNLI in 1963, carrying out countless rescues over the next 50 years.
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution had been operating entirely inflated small motorized boats for close to shore rescue recovery that were nautically limited in their capacity, range, endurance, sea keeping, sea worthiness and top speed.
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