Cheap Inflatables

[KenMcCulloch]

What are people's experiences of the (relatively) cheap PVC fabric inflatables on the market these days? I know an Avon is pretty well unbeatable for durability but the equivalents from the likes of Seago etc are about 1/3 the price.

 

[Thamesbank]

Cheap and cheerful

I bought a cheaper 3m inflatable a few years ago. A Quicksilver with an airbed if you must know. It quickly fell into a desperate state, although I still use it (now for getting round the boat to paint it!).
I use other inflatables for my job, such as Avon and DSB and they are bombproof. I guess you get what you pay for. Try looking at the DSBs:
http://www.deutsche-schlauchboot.de/en/

 

[HenryB]

I've just bought a Seago 2.6 for £300 and it appears to be well constructed and made of the same fabric as my previous Plastimo which lasted me 8 years and cost £500. That only failed because I used it for 7 years in the Med. without a cover for most of the time and the UV made the fabric go soft and sticky. Both were made in China as are most/all of the cheaper ones.
Mind you, I also have an Avon which is 25 years old and still sound but wet in anything but flat calm.

 

[vyv_cox]

Re: Cheap and cheerful

<< A Quicksilver with an airbed if you must know. It quickly fell into a desperate state, >>

Not sure how you must have treated it. I have had a 2.7 metre Quicksilver for about four years, we live aboard for half the year so it is well used. It still looks as good as the day we bought it, is robust and doesn't leak. An excellent buy, especially compared with vastly overpriced Avons.

 

[Clyde_Wanderer]

Re: Cheap and cheerful

LIDDLE are doing one tomorrow about as cheap as you can get. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[SvenglishTommy]

Re: Cheap and cheerful

I have very cheap Plastimo 2.4 that I bought for £230. It is not of the same quality as the Avons and Zodiacs I have used in the past, but it seems perfectly well constructed and is fine for the reasonably light use it gets. What I really dont like is the inflatable seat, much prefer a rigid plank.

 

[opalcutter]

Re: Cheap and cheerful

Before I buy a Lidl inflatable dinghy. Anybody know anything them or should i give them a wide berth (sorry about the pun). /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[steve_cronin]

The "rubber" they use for the oar stowage clips is so hard, compared to that on the "Original" Plastimos that it is very difficult to get the oars into them.

Like everything else made in polluting Chinese factories, it LOOKS like the real thing and that is enough for them so that is as far as they go.

Near to our office is a main site of a leading pressure measuring equipment manufacturer. A lady client of ours who works there told me last month a story of what happened when "The Bosses" decided to have a pressure vessel outsourced to China. My client, being a senior QA inspector got the job of testing it. Her words were "It looked exactly like one we had made in the UK but when we subjected it to the normal testing procedures it failed very quickly when the paint obscured pin holes in the poor quality castings, revealed themselves."

That is their game and they pollute the planet and give off masses of CO2 in the process, not only from the manufacturing plant but more importantly, and often hidden to naive British product sourcers, the totally un-regulated power stations.


BTW, who do you think will make the most out of the 2012 LONDON Olympics? Well, the Chinese equipment manufacturers of course!

Steve Cronin

 

[FullCircle]

I am pleased to see you are a Champion against conspicuous consumption Steve. 1/4 of the new Beemer was made in those very factories you complain of.
I am sure the Chinese and all other 3rd world manufacturers will modify their behaviour when they have become as affluent as we became on the backs of their resources.
What a shock it will be when there are no more disadvantaged economies to exploit.
We invented the Industrial Revolution, and along come the Tiger economies for their time at it, and suddenly its evil. Shame on you.

I have Wetline 230RT and a host of other goods made in Asia. My choice, eyes wide open, and nothing much wrong with them.

Keep flying to the boat Steve.

 

[opalcutter]

Where then, are the rest all made? I would love to buy British but I'm on a tight budget. Should I do without due to my circumstances? Why does it seem to me that all the "Green" taxes only affect those on a lower budget. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[ShipsWoofy]

Acsully, for the first time in the history of this forum I agree wholeheartedly with steve. This should not be accepted as a precedent though.

 

[Bajansailor]

I am sitting on the fence, and can see both arguments here, although I guess I have probably fallen off the fence a bit cos I did buy a Wetline 1.8m. inflatable dinghy last year, made in China, and I am pleased as punch with it.
I have no illusions though about it lasting as long as our Avon Redcrest, which is about 15 years old now, and going strong.

 

[steve_cronin]

Just about every "point" you try to make is flawed, inaccurate or just plain wrong.

By the time that China catches up with the west, the low lying islands of the Indian Ocean will already be under water and the last polar bear will have died long since.

THEY are making the vast majority of the pollution servicing our greed and the false prosperity we all seem to love and reflect in buying goods that fall apart in three years and need replacing.

We are all poor, working class peasants living in a fool's paradise surrounded by our junk the making of which is what is causing the planet to heat up.

A few trips by air don't amount to zilch. Even if we stopped ALL air traffic, WORLDWIDE, today, it would only make a couple of percent difference.

I have no objection to the Chinese bettering themselves but we need to steer them along the correct path NOT wait until their vicious leaders just happen to stumble over the sustainable route. Too late by then, if they ever do it.

Steve Cronin

 

[FullCircle]

In your humble opinion.
We (the Western Industrialised World) have spent over 200 years at polluting the world, in 'fact' we even went so far as to have 2 World Wars for a total of 10 years in pursuit of industrial wealth.
I am not saying that the Asian economies are absolutely right, but they are now burning their resources in the same way that we have, and are doing with shoddy goods, according to you, which seems to be one of their main crimes. Would it be OK if they went about it like the Japanese and The Germans post WWII then? Dont matter if it pollutes the world or strips the resource from the plant as long as it is a quality item that lasts? Pah.
They will change but they aint about to stop now, they have 1.2 billion mouths to feed, who now want to experience the same luxuriuous consumerism that you have been priveleged enough to have been brought up with. Their leaders have perfect clarity about the sustainable path, it just needs to be made affordable.
Look at Korea of the last 25 years, watch the cycle, it will happen, but to cast the Chinese as the Shoddy Evil Empire is just crass hypocrisy. Even your PC wouldnt work without the Chinese industrial revolution.
By the way, has America (the real Evil Empire) signed up to ANY reductions recently? No, what about the Russian states then? Perhaps the Japanese? Gosh, what, none of them? Anything in India? no, well what about South America then? Crikey, we ought to get all these guys together and agree a plan which possibly makes the Consumerist West consume rather less.
If the goods, shoddy or otherwise havent got a ready market, then they wont be needed.
Mea Culpa, I have 6 tonnes of cars, 1/2 a tonne of motorbikes and 6 tonnes of boat, with all the essential support items needed to maintain my comfortable lifestyle.

I guess its OK that my boat was made in a less polluting Wetern factory, because its shiny and all the materials were mined and converted without hurting a single Tuna.

My investment portfolio is showing great returns. Oops, thats wrong, because they are in Oriental Equities and Natural Resources, so I am directly funding them, and they appear to be directly funding me. Need to break that cycle somhow.