High pressure on air floor of inflatable

cmedsailor said:
OK guys, I will admit my official ....stupidity. I found out yesterday that the pump that came with my hondawave inflatable has an extra outlet that mentions "high pressure" (my only excuse it that it is not very visible but it's there). All these years, simply because I never bothered with inflating the floor at a higher than the normal pressure until a friend told me last week, I never realised that this hole was an extra outlet for this purpose. In any case, thanks for the answers and especially to those that have said that it was something supplied with the pump.
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Have to admit it's not an obvious thing! I struggled to sort it out when I first got my Zodiac Aero.
 
BlueChip said:
I've got two of these pumps, one I keep on the boat here and one in Spain
http://www.youboatmarine.com/bravo-superturbo-high-speed-pump-12v-1892-p.asp
Just dial in the pressure for hull or floor and the pump runs until the chamber is at pressure, then it cuts out, absolutely no topping up by hand or foot pump required.
Takes less than 10 minutes to inflate our Zodiac 3.6 in Spain and no more angst pumping up the boat in 35 degrees.
Here it means we don't have to worry about davits and our Zodiac 3.2 is ready for use in about 5 minutes.
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That's the same as ours. A bit noisy but we only use it to inflate at the beginning of a cruise. If we're on the boat for weeks and weeks we top it up with the foot pump.

I wouldn't be without the davits for the ease of not having to demount the outboard and oars etc. It all stays together as a unit and is ready to go without any prep's other than lowering it into the water.

Delighted the OP is sorted.
 
Well, I spent a long time looking because I wanted something as light as possible, and didnt really know what I was looking for! The research revealed that the lightest I could find was a RibEye, so a RibEye it was. I think it was a good decision. It is very light, well made and looks good after a few years. The floor is aluminium so easy to drill and attach lifting points in the ideal positions. (Note the middle section is hollow, but not the sides). It planes well, much better than the inflatable. Unfortunately they dont do a Hypalon version (or didnt) but the material in this country isnt suffering. I will probably make some chaps for the tropics. I went for a 310 and run a 20 HP two stroke (again to help keep the weight down) and without centre console. That works fine on a larger yacht (the IP is 55 feet) with a reasonable beam but might be too much on some yachts. The range covers most sizes - larger and smaller. With the 20 HP I can plane 3 up without problem, whereas with the 15 HP I had before that was almost impossible. It is light enough to haul on the beach. The only draw back is I dont like leaving the engine on the tender on longer passages and it is really too heavy to man handle so I have a mechanism for lifting it on and off the transom using the arch on the rear. Personally I think a 9.9 HP is as much as you want to man handle especially if the boat is moving about a bit!
 
Many thanks for your detailed reply. I currently have a Honwave, but you can only put the wheels up or down when standing out of the boat, on previous tenders I've been able to put the wheels up or down from within the boat. Therefore I've been thinking of changing it. Your comments about having the davit fixing points on the floor and therefore being able to raise the tender higher and closer to the davits is something I hadn't considered before and therefore makes the aluminium hulled tender even more appealing.
 
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