Winter Boating at its Best

[Bigplumbs]

There can be some lovely days in the winter and if you wrap up well against the cold they are lovely days to go out on your boat.

yesterday November the 2nd 2021 in the UK was one such day so off we went in the little Rib.

Video below for any one interested.

 

[Bouba]

What is your criteria for choosing which boat to take out?

 

[Bigplumbs]

What is your criteria for choosing which boat to take out?

Very good question. This little 4.5 m Rib is my go to boat for day boating. Reasons are:

It is on an unbraked trailer, It is light and will tow behind any of our cars, It will beach almost anywhere, It has enough space for me and her indoors, It is also easy to handle single handed, Recovery is easy on almost any slipway. It has a 2 stroke 60hp that I am very confident with.

To be honest of all my Boats this is Deffo the one I like, enjoy and use the most by far. I suppose in short it is very low stress.

I think depending on the main slipway you use many Day Boaters have the Urge to go a little too big with their Rib or hard boat. I have a 17 foot Fletcher and it does launch well but I cant launch and recover it on my own. My 19 foot boat which is the same but only a bit longer is quite hard even with 2 people. Her indoors find the 17 and 19 foot boats very hard to hold on our slip when the tide is running and windy. The 4.5 m Rib is however very easy. I think the Ideal for a Day launch Rib for 2 people is a 4.8 which you can still get on unbraked trailer.

The reason I like unbraked trailers is demonstrated by the following which was on our tow back from Devon to Suffolk UK

Brakes stuck on and got a little hot

But thanks to the AA

 

[Hot Property]

Looks good Dennis, out of interest, how many hours of boating do you get per year?

I consider anything over 50 hours as a good season.

Engine hours not actual time on board.....

 

[julians]

Why do you have so many boats? It's seems that that rib could cover almost all the boating that you might want to do with any of the other boats you have.

 

[Bigplumbs]

Looks good Dennis, out of interest, how many hours of boating do you get per year?

I consider anything over 50 hours as a good season.

Engine hours not actual time on board.....

Good Question Nick. Now I am semi retired and Catherine has stopped working (I am not allowed to call it retired) we have done quite a bit more. I recon this year we have done about 130-140 hours in our own boats and probably 15 hrs with and on friends boats. I recon the split is

1) About 20 hours in the Sib - Honwave T38 ie
2) Probably 50 - 60 in the 4.5 m Rib
3) About 6 in our smaller Sibs
4) The Sad one. Only About 8 - 10 on the Sealine S24. Been an odd year for that one though
5) Only about 4 hours on the other boats
6) About 40 hours in the Itiwit canoes (Dont know if you count those).

I would have done more but Catherine bleats on about needing to garden

 

[Bigplumbs]

Why do you have so many boats? It's seems that that rib could cover almost all the boating that you might want to do with any of the other boats you have.

Main Reason for all the Boats is I like Boats and took a long while to hone down what sort of boating we like to do and did this by buying the boats. I am also a person who tends to never sell anything.

To be honest my experience tells me this about the boats I would always want:

1) Blow up canoes - Great fun very cheap and can be easily transported (Itiwit are the way to go I think)
2) Sib for taking places in the back of your car and can also be taken when using the Caravan where the Rib cant. Something like the Honwave T38ie is a good choice.
3) Larger solid boat for days when We want to take more than 2 People - This is where the Fletcher 17 or 19 comes in.
4) The Small 4.5 m Rib for most things as an easy day trailer boat and indeed my go to boat for just me or me and her indoors
5) For a stay on boat somthing like a 24 - 33 foot sports boat. We have a Sealine S24 in a Marina on the Norfolk Broads.

All of these boats were bought over about 10 Years and all were at the time bought very cheaply.

I know this is a lot but I say Why not.

If you can be bothered Our You Tube channel demonstrates these various boats in use. Link below

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR7_YT7tAsh_FwM_q5gOg6Q/videos

Many People ask me why I have 11 boats my Answer is always ....... Because 12 would be extravagant

By the way I am not Rich I just spend many hours looking for Bargains. The Rib in the video above for example with trailer and all the gubbings incl Engine was bought for £3K about 4 years ago before things went a bit silly Second hand price wise.