RIB Stands for Rigid Inflatable Boat.
This translates to something like a rigid inflatable boat, or an inflatable boat with a rigid hull. A RIB is a lightweight yet powerful, unsinkable boat with high capacity, built with a rigid hull bottom connected to side-shaped air floats/tubes that are inflated with high-pressure air to provide resilient stiffness along the upper sides of the boat. The design is stable, light, fast, and seaworthy. The inflated collar acts as a life jacket and ensures that the vessel maintains its buoyancy, even if the boat takes on water. The RIB is an evolutionary development of the inflatable boat with a rubber bottom made of fabric that has been stiffened with flat boards to form the deck or floor of the boat.
RIBs are very popular for private use but are also often used professionally. They are used as workboats (supporting shore facilities or larger ships) in water-based commerce, military vessels, where they are used in patrol functions and to transport troops between ships or ashore, and of course as lifeboats.
The History of the RIB.
The RIB originally comes from Great Britain. The combination of a rigid hull and large inflatable buoyancy tubes was conceived by a team from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) working in 1964 on a solution to reduce the wear on the fabric bottoms of existing inflatable lifeboats. Although working versions were built, the rigid hulls made of plywood were not strong enough and broke in waves.
In 1964, Admiral Desmond Hoare and his students from Atlantic College replaced the torn bottom of their 12-foot (3.7 m) lifeboat with a plywood plate glued to the inflatable tubes. This proved to be a successful modification, but was rather uncomfortable at speed offshore, and therefore the hull was rebuilt with a shallow V-bow entry transitioning to an almost flat stern. This boat was called Atlanta and later that year an Atlantic College RIB was exhibited at the London Boat Show.
The first commercially saleable RIB was introduced in 1967 by Tony and Edward Lee-Elliott of Flatacraft and patented by Desmond Hoare in 1969 after research and development at Atlantic College in South Wales.
The RNLI’s first rigid inflatable lifeboat was the B-class, Atlantic 21, enabling more maneuverable rescue operations closer to shore. The Atlantic 21 was the first generation of RIBs. The first commercial RIB would be the Avon Searider, which was launched at the London Boat Show in January 1969.
