convert soft bottom inflatable to hard bottom dinghy

Frosty can do it Frosty has done it, but its not good enough for Frosty but good enough for the Aussies.

 

Thats my Frosty ..!!!

 

You can never keep a good man down: that's why Frosty's up here and you other guys are down there . . .

 

No doubt you are down there with us then ,,,,

 

No, not at present, but I do admit to getting an occasional sinking feeling . . .

 

I experienced none of the troubles you had.

For my girlfriends genuine Zodiac I used high quality marine ply. I think 10mm. I cut it in one piece to fit the square section of the bottom. It went in OK in one piece. I have plans to make a triangulated piece for the front section too with some sort of male and female slot system so the 2 pieces will stay together.

With the cheap dingy we only did the ply bottom as we forgot the alloy slats when we shipped the dingy interstate for our Adelaide to Brisbane yacht delivery. So we used the cheapest crap ply possible. It ended up cracking, but still worked fine. I initially cut it in one piece like I did for my girlfriends but there was no way it was going to squeeze in, which is why I had to cut it. However with the cut in the middle it had no tendency to try and overlap or fold. The trick is to make sure it boards are as large as possible so they are a tight fit. If you don't plan on epoxying it, I would put a few layers of duct tap on the edges after you round them to prevent chafing.

I will get pics of the Zodiac next time I am on the boat.

 

I did not post what troubles I had,-- but---they were too many as you experienced. floppy floors are not acceptable and no matter what, sand and stones get into the edges and cause leaks.

 

Sure Frosty. If you can't get good results, no one can.

Cheers.

 

Depends what you want, sure slats are crap and a piece of plywood instead is a better floor but no longer a roll up which is what it was.

If I had a girl friend with a dinghy I would have a look at her slats.

 

Ran across this old thread while I was making something similar. Figured since there are dozens of manufactures of RIB why not convert one.

Built a hull piece and a interior piece. I have ton of pictures if anyone is interested in the build








Not perfect but it was a challenging but fun project. Finished it about a month ago and been out a half dozen time. So far so good.

 

Nice one. I have an Aquapro alloy rib hard hull without tubes. I have been told its pretty much worthless. Is this true our would it be economical to have tubes made for it?

 

I did it the other way around in that I made the hull fit the tubes. Making the tubes would be difficult at least from my prospective

 

It's a bit of a spin off, lower tech idea, but. I had a cheap inflatable - read pool toy. Which was a gift, & fairly useless, due to it's over-flexibility. But I got the idea to stick a Boogie Board in the bottom to act as a floor, & it made all the difference in the world. You could actually row it, even in some wind, with 2+ folks in it.
The Boogie Board was about 2" (50mm) thick, had beveled edges, and fit the floor of the inflatable like a glove.
- If naught else, it made a cheap emergency/2ndary/tiertary tender. And one which took up about zero storage space, aside from the Boogie Board.

So, in terms of stiffening a bit bigger, & more serious inflatable, it might be worth taking a look either at a piece of closed cell, semi-rigid foam. Say a piece of Airex. Or something a little stiffer. Perhaps a piece of Core Cell, or Surfboard foam. And contemplate lightly fiberglassing one, or both sides of the foam, to use it as an internal floor.
One of the key perks to said setup is having soft'ish, round-shapeable edges to such a floor. So that chafing of the inflatable would be minimized.

Or, you could go full on, & size a piece of say 8lb density Core Cell to match the exterior profile of your inflatable. Glue a piece of Sunbrella, or even glass cloth, to the top of the foam.
Then, sand it to the shape of your desires. Say, even profiling a keel into the center of the foam, & tapering it's edges fairly thin where it meets the outer edges of your inflatable. Put a couple of layers of glass onto the bottom, & then glue it to your tired old inflatable.

I wouldn't rate such a setup for planning per say. Unless one got real serious about the stiffness & structural integrity of the glue on foam bottom. But it might be an option for putting some life into an inflatable that was heading for the dumpster, due to it's having shot floor slats.
Such a modification wouldn't add much weight, but would add a bit of buoyancy, & more importantly, add some wear life when it came to beach landings. Which are hard on the bottom of any type of tender.

 

My GF had a small tender with wood slats. I replaced the slats with 2 boards of wood that were the shape of the floor. Made a big difference to the usability of the tender. Solid to stand on. No loss of buoyancy from a bellowing floor. A dry arse and it could plane.