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photo gallery > Some of my best friends are Rigid Inflatable Boats... (7)
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Steve and FasTide, Bow on.
Click image to view full size. Fastide is the fastest and "best" RIB in the Springtide fleet. She is 25ft long, aluminum hulled and powered by twin 225 Yamaha four stroke outboard engines. I have had her moving along in a 3 foot sea at 55 knots comfortably. With passengers, cruising speed is 30 knots.
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Steve and FasTide
Click image for full size view. Very important on RIB's is the design of the bow. At these speeds entry into the water must be clean and angles that are too steep create resistance and rapid deceleration when you skip in and out of the waves. Titan has mastered the RIB and are manufactured in Sidney on Vancouver Island for the RCMP, military and other high demand users.
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StrongTide and mirror calm
Click image to view full size. Many things about this image, and this evening, were incredible. The mirror flatness 2 miles North of Race Rocks is out of the norm and the sky, the reflection and the lighting was/is very dramatic. No photoshopping, just the usual post podruction.
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Golden Eye and StrongTide
Click image to view full size. While Fastide is built by Titan, Golden Eye and StrongTide, pictured here on scene with humpback whales, are Armstrong-built. A rigid-inflatable boat (RIB) or rigid-hulled inflatable boat, (RHIB) is a light-weight but high performance and high capacity boat constructed with a solid, shaped hull and flexible tubes at the gunwale. The design is stable and seaworthy. The inflatable collar means that buoyancy is not lost if a large quantity of water is shipped aboard. The RIB is a development of the inflatable boat. -
Whale watching in the fog
Click image for full size view. All SpringTide RIB's are fully equipped with 16 mile radar, GPS and VHF and UHF radios. As a commercial skipper running three, 3-hour trips per day with an average of 40 miles covered during each trip -- these instruments are crucial to getting it all done safely day-in, day-out.
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StrongTide in the spotlight
Click image for full size view. Vessel is StrongTide; a narrow, very active riding Armstrong-built RIB. She is powered by twin 150hp 2 stroke Yamahas and goes plenty fast with 300hp, easily cruising with 12 pax at 30 knots. StrongTide however needs a more experienced helmsman than the others due to her squirrelly nature and desire to impersonate a submarine when in a following sea.
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More StrongTide at sunset
Click image to view full size. Over a period of only a fw minutes the setting sun's intensity grew and the colours I was looking at kept changing. I've included similar images to illustrate the subtle lighting changes that took place over less than 5 minutes. No photoshopping other than sharpening, image sizing and minor colour enhancement.
