High pressure on air floor of inflatable

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cmedsailor

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I have a hondawave T24 tender with high pressure air floor. With the foot pump supplied, although very effective to inflate the boat at around 0.2-0.3 bar as required, there's no way to inflate the floor at 0.8 bar recommended. Once it reaches the 0.2-0.3 bars it's impossible to inflate it any more even if you start jumping on the pump!!!
Those of you that have a tender with high pressure air floors how do you inflate the floor? Can you recommend any, preferably, manual pumps that can do the trick?
 
My pump (came with the dinghy, though the package was second-hand so don't know if it's original) is a normal bellows foot-pump but it has an extra outlet socket for the hose. This connects to a smaller inner chamber inside the bellows which produces a higher pressure. The normal outlet does the main chambers and starts the floor, then I move the hose to the high-pressure outlet to finish it off. There's a small springloaded indicator which shows red when the correct pressure is reached.

I believe the pump is from the Bravo range.

Pete
 
I have two such tenders, a 'stirrup pump' vertical type and a bellows foot pump. Neither of them will come anywhere near the recommended pressure for airdeck/inflatable hull. However, when inflated as far as possible both tenders seem to be rigid and as hard as might be expected.
 
KellysEye said:
>However, when inflated as far as possible both tenders seem to be rigid and as hard as might be expected.

Same here.
Click to expand...

A standard bellows footpump will do fine for the main tubes, but an airdeck does need a higher pressure in order to be stiff enough to stand on without sagging.

Pete
 
prv said:
My pump (came with the dinghy, though the package was second-hand so don't know if it's original) is a normal bellows foot-pump but it has an extra outlet socket for the hose. This connects to a smaller inner chamber inside the bellows which produces a higher pressure. The normal outlet does the main chambers and starts the floor, then I move the hose to the high-pressure outlet to finish it off. There's a small springloaded indicator which shows red when the correct pressure is reached.
Click to expand...

My Zodiac Aero came with a similar pump. Works well and easily. Looks something like this...

s-l225.jpg
 
I was provided with a high pressure manaul pump with mine. They are available. It is also possible to buy an electric high pressure pump but as you know make sure it is the correct one.

I found having the correct pressure in the floor made a hige different to the performance of the RIB.

Another subject I know but it eventually went because I couldnt find any sensible way of using it with davits and if anyone is thinking of doing so I can only wish you the best of! Perfect for the deck or placing in a locker.
 
john_morris_uk said:
Foot pump with two outlets as already suggested although we use an electric pump most of the time.

The foot pump that came with our Avon will pump the air deck floor to .8 Bar as required. It takes a little time and effort though.
Click to expand...

I still haven't understood how this second outlet (that prv also mentioned) looks like so hopefully will find out. I am wondering if it is in the little kit bag that came with the boat but I remember only the pressure meter (or whatever is called) in there and some patches.
 
My pump came with the new dinghy, so I assume it's original, like prv said the pump seems to have two chambers, a large one to inflate the hull, and a smaller one which takes the air deck to a higher pressure. It's simply a case of switching the hose from one discharge port to the other.
 
ip485 said:
Another subject I know but it eventually went because I couldnt find any sensible way of using it with davits and if anyone is thinking of doing so I can only wish you the best of! Perfect for the deck or placing in a locker.
Click to expand...

I wonder what the problem was. Our Avon airdeck (complete with Yamaha 4hp outboard permanently mounted) is suspended from the davits on our boat a few metres from where I am sitting in the saloon as I write this.
 
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The issue I had was the difficulty of fixing points on the floor so that the tender could be pulled snug against the davits. I did consider a couple of strops underneath but these seemed to much effort each time. Using the attachments points on the side tubes just meant that with a little flex the tender couldnt be set snuggly against the davits. Of course for general cruising it deosnt matter that much but not such a good idea offshore. In the end a rigid floor I found was much easier to work with.
 
ip485 said:
The issue I had was the difficulty of fixing points on the floor so that the tender could be pulled snug against the davits. I did consider a couple of strops underneath but these seemed to much effort each time. Using the attachments points on the side tubes just meant that with a little flex the tender couldnt be set snuggly against the davits. Of course for general cruising it deosnt matter that much but not such a good idea offshore. In the end a rigid floor I found was much easier to work with.
Click to expand...

We use the eye on the bottom of the OB plate in the middle of the transom and the eye that's low down in the centre of inside the bow that's factory fitted on our Avon airdeck. I wouldn't cross the Atlantic with it on the davits but that's more to avoid any strain from getting pooped in a storm. (We tend to avoid such conditions when cruising round Europe!). The arrangement lifts it snug against our davits with no discernible movement. I have got some locating patches to stick on the dinghy and davits but I haven't got round to it yet.
 
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.
 
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
Click to expand...

How much noise does it make?

I currently have one of the handheld Rule turbine pumps, which is reasonably effective but offensively noisy, so much so that I'm embarrassed to use it in an anchorage with nearby boats. It got left in the anchor locker the other week though, followed by a boisterous upwind sail with plenty of green water across the decks and through the locker, and came out dripping seawater. It may yet be fine, but I won't be surprised if it dies, so this seems like an opportunity to replace it with something more sociable.

Pete
 
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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