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#
001 |
In The
Beginning... Tony's enthusiasm for RIBS always ensures he has something of interest to say! |
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HotRIBS sent me a RIBster Profile to fill in and I got to think that perhaps
a little history on the RIB might not go amiss. So I thought that I might
jot down a few facts to tell you illustrious surfers just how things got
started 35 years ago. I have added a few words on how things are going
now and a bit of advice for when choosing a RIB. I was a late developer when it came to learning to swim, I was twelve, it was 1951, and I had a very healthy respect for the sea and still have. God help those that don't have this respect. I was given my first inflatable back in 1947, when war surplus goods were being flogged off and about eight children ended up at Blakeney with these orange, one-man survival dinghies, all paddling like stink, and that must be the first ever recorded inflatable boat race. In 1965, seven years into what was supposed to be a military career, I got |
the urge to build a pure conventional inflatable. I sold it to a diver from Dover for £110. However, like many boat builders, I was always thinking of the next boat before I had finished the one I was currently building. The man from Dover was happy and whilst I was over the moon with his dosh the boat was a mean 'dubber-duck'. In a swell the floorboards would open up and take your leg off at the ankle. There was little rigidity, so the nose would submarine in a following sea, getting bent backwards under the hull! The speed was not fantastic.
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