Air Floor or Rigid Inflatable

J

Jeff and Julie

New member
We are going to place our order tonight (hopefully!) for an inflatable. We have finally narrowed it down to 2 choices:
1. Mercury 270 Air Floor
2. Mercury 260 Dynamic RIB

Price and weight wise they are both comparable. Does anyone see any real drawbacks with either? We would be storing it on top of the boat and not really needing to deflate it to store.

Also, does anyone have experiences ordering online with either Defender or Buster's? I thought I may have seen a negative post regarding Buster's?

Thanks for your help!
Jeff and Julie
 
Both of the inflatables you mention are made of PVC, which does not hold up well in UV and keeping it inflated on top of the boat will make sure that it gets plenty of that. The life of a PVC inflatable not bagged, but stored inflated in the sun is reported to be about five years.

Hypalon is much more UV-resistant than PVC and my original Achilles lasted me almost twenty years, including being inflated and towed behind my sailboat in the Keys and Bahamas for nearly two years.

We bought an Achilles LT-4 last year as a replacemnt. It has a hinged wooden floor and soft-tail (uses a motor mount), which folds up much smaller than a wooden transom model. It slide right under the tall radar arch on Valkyire and is easily powered by a Honda 2 HP.

Pictures are in our album.

Nick
"Valkyrie"
 
Nick,

I think we can order either one of the inflatables with PVC or Hypalon. We will have to look at both choices. Our boat is stored indoors and it seemed that Hypalon added more weight?

Julie
 
PVC or Hypalon
Click to expand...
This is the first decision to make. Hypalon is more robust, somewhat heavier, and more expensive. Pvc, or Decitex, or any of the other pseudonyms are less robust, somewhat lighter, and less expensive. UV light is hard on pvc but a cover can really mitigate it's effects. I opted for hypalon, but, I plan on keeping it for a long time. After all, I've had Adeline 18 years and she's not going anywhere.
 
Julie,

I too ordered from Defender and had no problems. I ordered a Mercury 240RU.

If you have a West Marine catalog handy, they talk about the two types of materials (PVC and Hypalon) advantages and disadvantages.
 
Jeff and Julie,

The Hypalon is a bit heavier, as stated, and more robust.

Our LT-4 is 8'6" long and weighs 56 pounds, which we find to be vetry manageable. To put it on the top I pull it from the water while standing on the foredeck and then slide it, bottom up, onto the top, with oars and motor mount attached, which negates the need to store those elsewhere.

Defender currently has the Achilles LT-4 priced at $999, which is less than we paid for ours a year ago.

I have never had a PVC inflatable, so can't speak about their life from PERSONAL experience, but as I said, our previous Achiles lasted almost 20 years, 18 to be exact, with hard use every year.

Best regards,

Nick
"Valkyrie"
 
Our son and grandson just rowed ashore, to explore Matia Island, in our air-floor Seyvlor -- very light, very easy. El and I last week finished a kayak trip down a portion of the Colorado River in our air-floor Seyvlor kayaks -- easy, simple to fold, deploy, and use.
 
I ordered a Mercury Air Floor from Busters. They did everything they said they would do. They shipped on time. Got a great price. Shipping was messed up by Fed Ex and was shipped to Fredericksburg, Texas instead of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Busters filed a claim on my behalf and reimbursed me ALL the shipping when they got it from Fed Ex. Buster's took care of the $75 mail in rebate from Mercury and it arrived within 6 weeks. I have no complaints and would do business again with them.

John
Swee Pea
 
Well, we went up to Inflatable Boatworks in Seattle to check out the Mercury air floor and the RIB.
We ended up placing an order for a Gary King Alaska Series today with Jim King!!
We just couldn't believe how "beefy" and strong the Alaska Series seemed compared to the Mercury. Of course, it cost more but we hope to have it for many years to come!
We ordered the 8' 10" Seward in Royal Blue. Our boys aren't getting any smaller, so we hope this one will be sufficient for all of our needs.

I really appreciate all of the input and help from everyone!

Thanks,
Julie
 
Jeff and Julie":mkydg5xs said:
We ended up placing an order for a Gary King Alaska Series today with Jim King!!
Click to expand...

Welcome to the C-Brats Alaska Series owners' club! Many of us came to the same conclusion either previously or after checking out the various inflatables at the Seattle Boat Show last January.

Warren
 
I own (and in the past have owned a number) of both PVC and Hypalon boats. If I am going to roll it up and store in the garage, then PVC is fine. if you want to keep it out in the weather, the Hypalon is far better.

An RIB will ride better than an Air floor, it will be much better on the beach and rocks--a soft bottom is fine on sand, but not on rocks or barnicles. I would think that an RIB is heavier--and you may well consider a davit to hoist it. We currently use an air floor, and it is about 60 lbs. Also what type of engine and how far you want to travel in the inflatable is a factor--the larger engine will give greater capacity and longer range--but that may not be necessary for your plans. If you have an engine much larger than the 2 to 3 hp units, you may want to consider a davit for taking it on and off of the dinghy.

We prefer to deflate our inflatables, except RIBS--when traveling any distance. Then store them in the cockpit.
 
We have the Merc Air Floor and it has been a very good boat for our purposes.
It stows easily in the cockpit and will run a little more then 20mph with a 15hp Johnson with a big eared 4 bladed prop.

The only difficult thing with an air floor is the pressure of the floor, it must be at or slightly above 11.4 psi, this is very important otherwise you will not get best performance. There are not a lot of air pumps that will get it to that pressure. I am on my 4th pump and over $250 on pumps.

We have used it for 6 years at Lake Powell and Yellowstone with good results.

If you can store the boat on the top of the cabin and if you can go with an RIB I would, its a much more durable boat. We are very careful with our air floor.
 
We had the first use of our Gary King Alaska Series 240TDS this weekend! Got a yellow one. It has a rigid inflatable floor, and we paid the extra for the abrasion resistant bottom...It rows great, much relieved to find I can easily get it on and off the cabin roof over the bow (it is a bit heavier than the Mercury RU240 we had that got stolen). Initially had a little problem with the valve on the floor leaking, but Jim King answers emails, and Inflatable Boatworks fixed it while Patty waited. So far, I will say this one seems like a winner!
 
We also ordered an Alaska Series dingy (in safety yellow like Pat) at the Seattle Boat show. I just picked it up and inflated it in the living room. It is the 270TDS which is 8'10" long and about 5" wide. Wow, it sure looks bigger than that in the living room! I didn't like how small my 7'11" Mercury was, but I now realize that being a transom model it had a lot less room in it than this beast. I think we could float the Yakima River in this one with 4 people and a cooler in it.

It says it's only 50 lbs, but it feels heavier than that, I think the "Grizzly Claw" reinforcement on the bottom must add 4-5 lbs. I was able to easily pull my other dingy up over the bow and secure it on the roof. This one may be more of a struggle. I plan to be on the boat in the San Juans this weekend, so I'll get a chance to see how it works. I just keep adding more and more sail area to this boat. Pretty soon I'll be able to sail it at 6 knots but won't be able to dock the boat at all.
Lyle
 
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