Finished rigging my new tender

[Mischief Managed]

Bought a North Atlantic Inflatable 10' 8" Aluminum RIB in Hypalon and rigged it with my old Mercury outboard over the weekend. It was a fun project and I'm chuffed at the result. I'd never rigged an outboard before.



The engine came from my old Zodiac air floor boat and started life with me as a low-hour, 2004 9.9 HP two stroke with tiller steer, shift, and throttle, and pull start. I replaced the carburetor with a much bigger one which increased the HP to 15 ($255), removed the tiller and added remote steering, remote shifting and remote throttle, and added electric start (another $650 in parts). The engine only weighs 81 lbs now.



My goal was a <300lb, comfortable (for two) dinghy that can plane with four people. Fingers crossed that I achieved it. I bought an 8" pitch prop for use with heavy loads.

 

[kchace]

I saw the title and I thought of you immediately. :^)

It looks great. How do you feel about the North Atlantic quality so far? How are you going to be storing it when traveling? What nav lights did you settle on? Is that a built in cooler under the seat?

We can try skiing when the weather warms up.

Ken

 

[Mischief Managed]

I saw the title and I thought of you immediately. :^)

It looks great. How do you feel about the North Atlantic quality so far? How are you going to be storing it when traveling? What nav lights did you settle on? Is that a built in cooler under the seat?

We can try skiing when the weather warms up.

Ken

The quality seems comparable to other decent brands I looked at, and is much better than the older Zodiac I have now. The price, with the Euro-helm, steering, and Navisafe LED lights installed was a very reasonable $5400 and dealing with Rob (the owner of NAI) was a pleasure.



The under-seat is just a box, but it is set up with a vent and a wire port with a rubber grommet so that it was easy to install my battery box in it.


I may add tilt and trim, so the shifter/throttle I bought has the trim button and is pre-wired, just in case. I plan to add a fuse block, an electric horn, a GPS, and USB charging ports.


Edit: Forgot to mention that I will use a combination of regular davits to lift it and a Hurley system to set it on, on my swim step.

 

[Dougcole]

I like that a lot, very well done. Those older two strokes, especially mercs, are pretty tourquey so it may get the job done.

One thing I personally can't stand in a smaller inflatable is when the seat/console takes up almost the whole cockpit, they just aren't real practical. I like your tiny console because it doesn't do that.

 

[Mischief Managed]

I like that a lot, very well done. Those older two strokes, especially mercs, are pretty tourquey so it may get the job done.

One thing I personally can't stand in a smaller inflatable is when the seat/console takes up almost the whole cockpit, they just aren't real practical. I like your tiny console because it doesn't do that.

Thanks, I put a lot of thought and research into this project and I hope it's as good as I think it will be. The motor was always a bit tough to start and keep running when it was cold, as a 9.9, but with the new carb, the electric start, and the electric choke, it fires up immediately and runs perfectly right away.

 

[Mako]

Does anyone have experience with the Saturn inflatables sold by boatstogo in Miami? I’m interested in either the 14’ or 16’ pvc versions

 

[Slowmo]

Interesting the cold blooded nature changed with the carb change. I have the factory 15 horse version and it's cold blooded as heck. Luckily it's electric start. Nice little engine though as always could use 10 more HP. I don't like the 4T engines, too heavy to lift.

 

[PM]

How are you going to carry it? You will need some pretty substantial davits or a crane.

pete

 

[Comodave]

Nice looking tender. Have you looked at Seawise davits? Put one on a previous boat and loved it.

 

[Mischief Managed]

I have some extremely rugged welded aluminum custom davits for lifting and a set of Hurley davits to set the boat on once it's on my swim platform (to reduce the load on the transom where the davits will be mounted). I was going to make some chocks to set it on and just a few days after making that decision, a brand new set of Hurley davits hit craigslist a mile from my house. I got them for half price and now I don't need to fabricate any chocks. I like that the Hurleys are quickly removable and that they tilt.

 

[Mischief Managed]

Interesting the cold blooded nature changed with the carb change. I have the factory 15 horse version and it's cold blooded as heck. Luckily it's electric start. Nice little engine though as always could use 10 more HP. I don't like the 4T engines, too heavy to lift.

I'd bet that my "new in the box" carburetor has the idle mixture screw turned out a bit further than a factory-installed carburetor so that it will start easily. My guess is that in order to pass emissions requirements, Mercury had to manually tune the idle mixture on every new carbureted engine until it was as lean as possible. You can easily remove the cap that covers the idle mixture screw and back it out a smidge to make it run better cold. Does not take much. PM me with an email address and I'll send you the factory service manual for your motor.


Interestingly, the 15 HP carburetor throat size is not maximized for full flow, it's throttled down a bit, as you can see in the attached photo. The full-flow carburetor was supposedly used on an 18HP version of our engines, but I was unable to buy one anywhere; they stopped making them years ago. I bought my 15HP carb from Walmart...


15HP carb on left, 9.9 HP carb on right. You can see how the throat size is necked down dramatically on the 9.9 version.

 

[IRENE]

Does anyone have experience with the Saturn inflatables sold by boatstogo in Miami? I’m interested in either the 14’ or 16’ pvc versions

Yes. We had a 12’ Kaboat used as rowing tender with our previous boats for 4 years. Now I have a SUP which is about 4 years old.

I have had zero issues with the Saturn boats. Coming from a background of Achilles and Zodiac, my standards were high and I read about the disadvantages of PVC. The Saturn products have been a great bang for the buck, with little if any downside. I will not hesitate to order another if we need one.

MM - nicely executed upgrade. Let us know about the performance, like top speed and planing time.

We just upgraded our AB with a console and motor in a similar fashion. Presently, we are fine tuning by adding a Doelfin and swapping props.

 

[Dougcole]

I have some extremely rugged welded aluminum custom davits for lifting and a set of Hurley davits to set the boat on once it's on my swim platform (to reduce the load on the transom where the davits will be mounted). I was going to make some chocks to set it on and just a few days after making that decision, a brand new set of Hurley davits hit craigslist a mile from my house. I got them for half price and now I don't need to fabricate any chocks. I like that the Hurleys are quickly removable and that they tilt.

We keep our tender, an 11' Caribe Light with a 20 hp suzuki four stroke, on our swim platform on Trick Davits. Trick Davits and Hurley Davits are really similar. I don't have the welded davits but use a line strung from the stanchion of the flybridge deck run through a set of sailboat blocks and cam cleat to pull it onto the davits. It works really well. My guess is that our tender is similar in weight to yours. Your boat is probably heavier but our motor is heavier.



I had to reinforce the trick davits by changing the center plates from starboard to machined aluminum, but other than that I've been pleased with them.

 

[Mako]

Yes. We had a 12’ Kaboat used as rowing tender with our previous boats for 4 years. Now I have a SUP which is about 4 years old.

Thanks for the feedback on the Saturns. How well does that Kaboat row for you? It certainly can’t be as smooth as a rigid hull, but hopefully better than a typical inflatable.