How to choose a PVC boat for fishing — 10 best tips

A PVC boat is the most con­ve­nient option in terms of ease of trans­porta­tion and stor­age. In addi­tion, it is quite light and durable, which is espe­cial­ly impor­tant for those who are used to going out on the water alone. If you need a boat for gen­er­al walks and rid­ing on the water, choose the one that you like best in terms of appear­ance and price.

In the case of fish­ing, things are not so sim­ple. This already requires tak­ing into account some impor­tant cri­te­ria, which we will dis­cuss in detail in this arti­cle. They relate to both struc­tur­al strength and exter­nal fac­tors. Even the col­or mat­ters, not to men­tion the func­tion­al options that sim­pli­fy the process of fish­ing and make it more com­fort­able.

1. Mate­r­i­al
2. Seam weld­ing and glu­ing
3. Mate­r­i­al den­si­ty
4. Bot­tom
5. Size and load capac­i­ty
6. Main struc­ture
7. Tran­som
8. Design fea­tures
9. Col­or
10. Man­u­fac­tur­ers

The best PVC boats for fish­ing
one	Pilot C‑200	Best price
2	TONAR Skip­per 260	Robust design
3	GLADIATOR Pro­fes­sion­al D420AL	The best mod­el for fish­ing
four	Aqua 3400 NDND	high den­si­ty pvc
5	Bad­ger Heavy Duty 370AL	Large load capac­i­ty

Oth­er rat­ings:

• 10 Best Boat Trail­ers

Material

What type of PVC was used in pro­duc­tion?
The mod­ern inflat­able boat is made of PVC. Man­u­fac­tur­ers have long aban­doned rub­ber, as it does not have the nec­es­sary mar­gin of safe­ty and is sub­ject to aging. But with PVC there are some nuances that you need to know about. There are two types of mate­r­i­al: rein­forced

and
unre­in­forced
. By the names it is easy to guess what their dif­fer­ences are. Unre­in­forced PVC is only suit­able for leisure­ly walks along a riv­er or lake. If we are talk­ing about fish­ing, then it is nec­es­sary to choose the rein­forced type and noth­ing else. Only he is able to pro­vide the boat with strength, reli­a­bil­i­ty and dura­bil­i­ty. Of course, such a boat will cost more, but this is the moment on which you can­not save in any case, oth­er­wise your boat will not last long.

Choice by configuration

The basic equip­ment of the boat depends on its man­u­fac­tur­er and pur­pose. Def­i­nite­ly nev­er includ­ed in the stan­dard kit:

- sail­ing instal­la­tion, steer­ing; — hinged tran­som; — motor, if it is a motor or motor-row­ing mod­el.

These sys­tems need to be select­ed and installed inde­pen­dent­ly.

The man­u­fac­tur­er may include in the basic pack­age:

— seats, bags-lock­ers to them; — oars with oar­locks; — pay­ol; — a case for stor­age and car­ry­ing of the boat.

Must be:

- hand pump; — repair kit.

There­fore, spec­i­fy the com­plete set of the mod­el in advance. After all, if at first you can do with­out a lock­er bag, then you can’t do with­out oars and a pump.

Seam welding and gluing

How was the glu­ing done and how strong are the welds?

The inflat­able boat is made from PVC sheets weld­ed togeth­er. It can be open seams or insu­lat­ed. In the sec­ond option, an addi­tion­al rein­forc­ing tape is applied over the weld, pro­tect­ing the joint from rup­ture and exces­sive pres­sure. It is the seams that are the weak­est point of the boat, and it is they who will be the first to break if you run into a snag or snag while fish­ing. Boat with closed joints

more prefer­able, and it is worth choos­ing it.

We also look at stick­ers. These are attach­ments of addi­tion­al mod­ules to the skele­ton of the boat. For exam­ple, oar­locks are sim­ply glued to boats. Two meth­ods are used: cold and hot. There is an opin­ion that the hot method is bet­ter, but this is an out­dat­ed mis­con­cep­tion. Today both bond­ing meth­ods are equal­ly reli­able

, and mar­riage is eas­i­ly deter­mined by eye. If the mod­ule is glued well and no defects are vis­i­ble, you can safe­ly take the boat, no mat­ter how the mod­ules were con­nect­ed.

Material density

What are the strength indi­ca­tors of the base mate­r­i­al?
PVC varies in strength. It is pro­vid­ed by the mul­ti-lay­er and the thick­ness of each lay­er. It is mea­sured in grams per square meter. The indi­ca­tor may vary from 700 to 1500 units

. The high­er the num­ber, the stronger the struc­ture. But even so, it is heav­ier, so you should not imme­di­ate­ly buy the most durable option. For exam­ple, for access to open water
enough for 700 units
. If your fish­ing often takes place in the reeds, the indi­ca­tor should be
from 900 to 1100 g/m2
. And for trolling with pow­er­ful lures, it is rec­om­mend­ed to choose a boat with a strength indi­ca­tor
above 1100 g/m2
. In gen­er­al, no mat­ter what den­si­ty you choose, the main thing is to strike a bal­ance. For exam­ple, a two-seater mod­el with a max­i­mum rate will weigh about 200 kilo­grams, which will cause cer­tain dif­fi­cul­ties with trans­porta­tion and launch­ing.

Pilot C‑200

Best price

The most bud­get sin­gle PVC boat with a min­i­mum set of options and a load capac­i­ty of 100 kilo­grams. An excel­lent row­ing option for fish­ing alone, with which there will be no prob­lems dur­ing trans­porta­tion and launch­ing.Rat­ing mem­ber:
20 best PVC boats

Boat registration and license

When choos­ing a PVC boat, you should under­stand which kits are sub­ject to manda­to­ry reg­is­tra­tion and which do not require it, as well as know which kits you will need rights to man­age. Remem­ber that in accor­dance with the inno­va­tions in the Code of Inland Water Trans­port (KVVT RF), from Jan­u­ary 1, 2015, reg­is­tra­tion and obtain­ing the right to oper­ate a small ves­sel with a light weight of up to 10.8 hp. and a ves­sel mass of not more than 200 kg is not required. In oth­er cas­es, there is a need to obtain rights.

Bottom

What is the bot­tom of the boat made of?

The cheap­est PVC boat will be with soft bot­tom

. It’s a can­vas just stretched between the air tanks. In such a boat, you won’t be able to stand on your feet, and in gen­er­al it is as uncom­fort­able as pos­si­ble.
Inflat­able bot­tom mod­ule
also has its draw­backs. Espe­cial­ly if we are talk­ing about fish­ing, where a meet­ing with var­i­ous obsta­cles is inevitable. It is quite easy to spoil such options for the bot­toms.

The best option — hard bot­tom.

It can be alu­minum and ply­wood. The first option is more prefer­able, but at the same time expen­sive. Ply­wood is less resis­tant to con­stant mois­ture and will come apart soon­er or lat­er, but it can be eas­i­ly replaced by buy­ing and cut­ting the bot­tom out of a reg­u­lar sheet.

To summarize — Which boat is better for one “selfish” and which boat is better for two fishermen?

There are a lot of PVC boat man­u­fac­tur­ers: Riv­iera, Rotan, Solar, Aqua, Hunter, Nis­san Marine, Admi­ral, Strim and the Chi­nese, which I have nev­er heard of names — a lot.

The same num­ber of motors for these boats — Yama­ha, Toha (Tohat­su — they are also Mer­cury-Mer­ck), Hon­da, Sport Jet, Marin, Suzu­ki and oth­ers.

For the “ego­ist” — one fish­er­man, as well as for two fish­er­men, stroke in the direc­tion of boats with an inflat­able bot­tom (NDND) Frigate or Solar, plus a Toch or Mer­ck motor with 9.8 hors­es. And you will be hap­py!

I want to tell you more about the rib boat (in this pub­li­ca­tion I did not specif­i­cal­ly dwell on such boats): Win­Boat 360 Sprint Fold­ing Rib: a great boat for fish­ing, bet­ter than pay­ol ones.

IMHO, we are wait­ing for your sug­ges­tions — unsub­scribe in the com­ments.

Size and load capacity

How many peo­ple and loads can the boat hold?
boat capac­i­ty

- the para­me­ter is pure­ly per­son­al and depends on which com­pa­ny you plan to use the boat. But now the two-man design is the most pop­u­lar, and it is bet­ter to take it even if you go out on the water alone. There is only one can for sit­ting here, and the bow and stern are designed to accom­mo­date car­go.

The larg­er the boat, the more pow­er­ful the motor it will need. A two-seat mod­el can move with a 5–15 horse­pow­er engine, while a 4‑seat mod­el will already need 20 horse­pow­er or more.

In addi­tion to capac­i­ty, there is a para­me­ter load capac­i­ty

. As a rule, they are direct­ly relat­ed, but may dif­fer from man­u­fac­tur­er to man­u­fac­tur­er. For exam­ple, some firms like to embell­ish the data of their prod­ucts, and in the store it is easy to find a boat with a capac­i­ty for 4 peo­ple, but with a car­ry­ing capac­i­ty of only 350 kilo­grams. It is easy to cal­cu­late how much each pas­sen­ger should weigh and how much car­go you can take with you. Choose a boat accord­ing to your pref­er­ences. Also, if you are fish­ing alone but have a 4‑seat mod­el, it will be dif­fi­cult to han­dle it.

The secrets of choosing and operating PVC boats and motors from the Shcherbakov brothers

This video cov­ers the fol­low­ing ques­tions:

• How to choose a PVC boat for fish­ing.
• How to inflate a boat.
• How to store and oper­ate a PVC boat.
• “Acces­sories” for PVC boats.
• PVC boat repair.
• Draw­ing a num­ber on the board of a PVC boat.
• Selec­tion of the opti­mal motor pow­er.
• Motor run-in.
• Motor choice: 4‑stroke or 2‑stroke.
• Advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages of pow­er­ful motors.
• Motor repair and main­te­nance.
• About plan­ing.
• How to oper­ate and store the motor.

https://youtu.be/qBabA3BexzI

Main structure

What con­trol is the boat designed for?

Due to its light weight, the inflat­able boat is eas­i­ly moved with the help of oars. But for long dis­tances, it can be dif­fi­cult to row by hand, so it is bet­ter to use an out­board motor. Per­fect option — uni­ver­sal design

, equipped with both oar­locks and a tran­som. This will be the most expen­sive mod­el, but the most con­ve­nient. In the thick­ets of reeds or in shal­low water, you can eas­i­ly move on oars. In addi­tion, row­ing does not scare away the fish. And if you need to move a long dis­tance, just low­er the motor and move on it. On the oth­er hand, if fish­ing takes place exclu­sive­ly in small rivers or lakes,
it makes no sense to over­pay for a tran­som
. In this case, you can save a lot on it.

TONAR Skipper 260

Robust construction

Reli­able inflat­able boat with pro­tect­ed welds and PVC den­si­ty of 850 units. The light­weight, manoeu­vrable design is ide­al for fish­ing in small waters and when mov­ing through reeds and coastal veg­e­ta­tion.Rat­ing mem­ber:
20 best PVC boats

How to choose a boat

How to choose a PVC inflat­able boat and not regret

Fol­low these tips to help you choose the right boat. main para­me­tersthings to con­sid­er when choos­ing a boat:

one. Type of boat: row­ing or motor-row­ing.

2. Capac­i­ty: from 1 to 8 peo­ple. This depends on the size of the boat and the car­ry­ing capac­i­ty.

3. Motor pow­er (if planned). It depends on the type of bot­tom and the size of the boat.

four. Bot­tom type: soft, inflat­able, hard-flat, hard with an inflat­able keel, low pres­sure inflat­able bot­tom (LPND) with a keel.

5. Size: from 190 cm to 430 cm.

6. Price.

7. Man­u­fac­tur­er.

Let’s take a clos­er look at each para­me­ter.

1. What type of boat do you need?

Inflat­able boats are divid­ed into:

• Row­ing — involves move­ment with the help of oars.
• Motor-row­ing — sug­gests the pos­si­bil­i­ty of installing a motor, but the oars also come with any motor-row­ing boat.

How to under­stand what kind of boat you need? It is nec­es­sary to answer the ques­tion: will I buy a motor?

If: “no, BUT maybe I’ll ride, get a taste and buy,” then in such cas­es peo­ple buy motor-row­ing boats, these are boats that are quite com­fort­able to dri­ve with oars and at the same time you can install a motor. These are, as a rule, boats from 280 to 430 cm in length.

If def­i­nite­ly not, then we are only look­ing at a row­boat, why over­pay for a motor­boat?

If yes, the answer is obvi­ous, you need a boat under the motor. Then we move on to the next item.

2. How many peo­ple will use the boat at the same time? This ques­tion implies how many peo­ple will poten­tial­ly be using the boat at the same time? How many peo­ple will use the boat most of the time?

Exam­ple: let’s say 2 peo­ple will be fish­ing in the boat 80% of the time, the remain­ing 20% ​​of the time there will be a max­i­mum of 3–4 peo­ple in the boat. There­fore, you need to look at a boat with a capac­i­ty of 3 peo­ple, this is the aver­age opti­mal val­ue for such a case.

It is always bet­ter at all times to buy a larg­er boat, with a mar­gin, than to sell it lat­er and buy a sec­ond one, and remem­ber, you buy a boat 10 years in advance, and this is a seri­ous peri­od.

Once a client called us with a wish to buy a boat for a com­pa­ny of 5–6 peo­ple, we advised him a mod­el that met his request — 4 meters in size. He bought a boat, bought a pow­er­ful motor, but as it turned out lat­er, he did not take into account the fact that he often likes to fish alone, and for one per­son this boat is too big and heavy, for one per­son, if he is not too big, the max­i­mum size of the boat is 320cm in length. He had to buy a sec­ond boat for such cas­es. It is impor­tant to cor­rect­ly esti­mate how often and how many peo­ple will use the boat.

But as a rule, peo­ple, on the con­trary, buy a boat that is not big enough and then come to us for a big­ger boat, keep this in mind.

3. What kind of motor do you need? The type of bot­tom and require­ments for the boat will depend on this.

First you need to under­stand the goals and desires: do you need glid­ing?

“Glid­ing is a move­ment on the water, in which the object is held on its sur­face only due to the high-speed pres­sure of the water (boat motor in our case), that is, it slides along the water sur­face. When enter­ing the glid­ing, there is a sharp decrease in resis­tance to move­ment. The effort required to get on plane is far greater than the effort need­ed to main­tain this mode … “Wikipedia

If you are look­ing for a boat with plan­ing access, then you need to buy a motor from 5 hp. This pow­er is enough to bring 1 per­son on plan­ing, which is about 26 km / h. For 2–3 peo­ple, a 9.8 hp motor should be con­sid­ered. For 3–5 peo­ple the 9.9 motor is per­fect — it is also 15 hp.

If you do not need plan­ing and are in no hur­ry, then con­sid­er motors from 2.6 hp to 3.6 hp, this will be a speed from 12 km / h to 16 km / h, or an elec­tric motor up to 8 km / h. (for com­par­i­son, row­ing speed on oars is 2–3 km / h)

Once a client came to us and said that he need­ed a boat with a motor for fish­ing, we picked up a boat for him, picked up a gaso­line engine, and he went home hap­py, but then he called us in annoy­ance with a request to return the gaso­line engine back, because it turned out that his dacha is locat­ed next to the reserve, and only elec­tric motors can be used on the reser­voir of this reserve. It turns out that he does not need a gaso­line engine or a boat with an inflat­able keel, but an ordi­nary punt and an elec­tric motor. Moral — when choos­ing a boat, there are many aspects to con­sid­er. Of course, we changed the boat and motor for him.

4. What type of bot­tom to choose?

Hav­ing decid­ed on the pow­er and pur­pose of the motor, as well as the capac­i­ty of the boat, we pro­ceed to the choice of the type of bot­tom:

• Soft — at the bot­tom the same mate­r­i­al as on the cylin­ders of the boat. The usu­al is used in row­ing boats in the basic con­fig­u­ra­tion. As an option, you can buy a ply­wood tab on the floor, which will allow you to stand up and fish while stand­ing, which is very con­ve­nient.
• inflat­able — usu­al­ly pop­u­lar with fish­er­men fish­ing in shal­low waters since the draft of such a boat is at a min­i­mum. The inflat­able bot­tom is appre­ci­at­ed by fish­er­men whose feet get cold from the cold sim­ple bot­tom.
• hard flat — a ply­wood slate is laid on the mate­r­i­al of the bot­tom of the boat, it has a flat bot­tom view, which means with­out a keel, i.e. such a bot­tom is ide­al for motors up to 3.6 hp, includ­ing elec­tric ones. It makes no sense for you to over­pay for the keel, because with such motors you will not feel the advan­tage of the keel in any way, but you will ful­ly expe­ri­ence the advan­tage of a hard bot­tom, with it the boat slides through the water much bet­ter and stiff­ens the entire struc­ture.
• Rigid with inflat­able keel — this type of bot­tom is nec­es­sary if you buy or plan to buy a motor with a pow­er of 5 hp and high­er, since it is this pow­er that allows you to go on plan­ing, and, there­fore, at high speeds, the keel gives more maneu­ver­abil­i­ty to the boat, it responds bet­ter to turns, does not slip off tra­jec­to­ry and does not “scour” the nose when mov­ing. The keel gives the boat the direc­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty it needs at speeds of 25 km/h or more.
• NDND — this is a type of built-in inflat­able bot­tom that can be inflat­ed to suf­fi­cient pres­sure (much more than a sim­ple inflat­able bot­tom), this bot­tom (NDND) is put on boats under a motor with a rigid tran­som. The main advan­tage of this bot­tom is the ease of assem­bly (just inflate and that’s it), soft­ness when hit­ting a wave, as well as a large car­ry­ing capac­i­ty.

5. The size of the boat must be select­ed based on sev­er­al cri­te­ria:

How many peo­ple will be on the boat

• 1 per­son – length from 190 to 320 cm
• 2 peo­ple – length from 260 to 340 cm
• 3 peo­ple – length from 300 to 360 cm
• 4 peo­ple – length from 340 to 380 cm
• 5 peo­ple – length from 380 to 430 cm
• 6 peo­ple – length from 400 to 430 cm

What is the planned motor pow­er

• Elec­tric motor — from 240 to 430 cm
• 2.6 hp — length from 240 to 320 cm
• 3.6 hp — length from 240 to 340 cm
• 5.0 hp — length from 280 to 340 cm
• 9.8 hp — length from 320 to 360 cm
• 9.9 (15) hp — length from 340 to 430 cm

What load capac­i­ty is required

The more lift­ing capac­i­ty is need­ed, the longer and with a larg­er cylin­der diam­e­ter the boat is need­ed.

6. What deter­mines the cost of the boat?

Since there are a huge num­ber of boat man­u­fac­tur­ers in Rus­sia, and com­pe­ti­tion is high, the prices for boats are about the same for every­one. As a result, high-qual­i­ty boats from well-known (5 brands), (5 brands), (2 brands) will cost the same as boats glued togeth­er “in the garage”. The price will vary depend­ing on the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the boat, such as: length, width, car­ry­ing capac­i­ty, cylin­der diam­e­ter, bot­tom type, fab­ric den­si­ty, fit­tings, rein­force­ment (armor).

7. Which man­u­fac­tur­er to choose?

There are sev­er­al para­me­ters to con­sid­er here:

How long has the boat fac­to­ry been in exis­tence? This direct­ly affects the expe­ri­ence and qual­i­ty of prod­ucts.

What is the mar­ket share of the man­u­fac­tur­er? If it has a large mar­ket share, then peo­ple do not just buy these boats, but find in them exact­ly those qual­i­ties that can sat­is­fy mass needs.

Is it pos­si­ble to see the boat in deal­er shops? Many fac­to­ries sell boats with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty for a per­son to come to the store and touch the boat, talk to a con­sul­tant, or con­sult before buy­ing.

What war­ran­ty does the fac­to­ry give on the boat?

We rec­om­mend boats of the fol­low­ing brands to our cus­tomers: Riv­iera, Bronya, Aqua, YACHTMAN, Taimen, Hunter, Stealth, APACHE — for 11 years of work, these man­u­fac­tur­ers have proven their worth and the mod­el range of these brands cov­ers 99% of cus­tomer requests today.

Here we have described the main para­me­ters by which you need to choose a boat. It would be wrong if we do not briefly list the para­me­ters that are less impor­tant, but often play a sig­nif­i­cant role in choos­ing a par­tic­u­lar mod­el:

• The max­i­mum allow­able motor pow­er is the poten­tial of the boat.
• Type of fas­ten­ing of cans (seat) — mobile or fixed.
• The avail­abil­i­ty of acces­sories for a spe­cif­ic mod­el — bow awnings, run­ning tents, rod hold­ers, echo sounder, etc.
• Aquat­ic envi­ron­ment of use — the size of the reser­voir, the pres­ence and size of waves, the dis­tances that the boat will go.
• The diam­e­ter of the cylin­der — the opti­mal size also depends on the require­ments.
• The pres­ence of rein­force­ment — book­ing cylin­ders and strength­en­ing oth­er ele­ments of the boat.
• Cock­pit width — affects com­fort and spa­cious­ness.
• The mass of the boat is an impor­tant indi­ca­tor for many.
• Aes­thet­ics, design — the appear­ance of the boat, the qual­i­ty of the fab­ric, whether the glu­ing is done pro­fes­sion­al­ly.
• Fab­ric col­or — for hunt­ing it is bet­ter to take a cam­ou­flage col­or, for fish­ing the col­or is not impor­tant, but the buy­er may have wish­es for col­or.
• Tran­som type — rigid or hinged.
• The pres­ence of addi­tion­al “chips” — a skip­per’s han­dle, a drain valve, an anchor eye, safe­ty lines, a back­pack or a reg­u­lar bag, a ring for fix­ing the tank, acces­sories.

One day, our annoyed client called us and shout­ed into the phone in an angry voice that we want to drown him. It turned out that he imme­di­ate­ly went fish­ing from the store and neglect­ed the most impor­tant rule: you must not only choose the right boat, but also where you buy it, no mat­ter what man­u­fac­tur­er glues this boat, always after buy­ing it in the store, before launch­ing the boat it is nec­es­sary to pump up and let stand for 8–10 hours in the inflat­ed form, mak­ing sure that the cylin­ders are intact. And only after that, low­er the inflat­able prod­uct into the water. This must be done 1 time to make sure there is no fac­to­ry defect. Accord­ing to sta­tis­tics, mar­riage occurs in 0.3% of cas­es, i.e. for 300 boats 1 may be defec­tive. Our shop with­out any prob­lems changes a defec­tive boat if it has not been on the water. This is safe­ty, no joke with it. Since he had 3 com­part­ments in the boat, and low­ered only 1, every­thing went well with the client. The boat was repaired under war­ran­ty free of charge and pre­sent­ed with a gift — rein­force­ment of the boat’s cylin­ders.

I hope the tips were help­ful to you. Do you have any ques­tions? Con­tact us! Let’s help, let’s help. Store address in Moscow: Timiryazevskaya st. 2/3, tel.

Transom

What is the tran­som made of and how is it attached to the base?

The tran­som is the stern rigid part on which the motor and oth­er aux­il­iary equip­ment are attached. Wheels are also mount­ed to the tran­som, designed to trans­port the boat along the shore, so as not to tear the bot­tom against bush­es and oth­er sharp objects.

The tran­som can be remov­able. It looks like a brace attached to the back of the boat. Not the most con­ve­nient design, but if you ini­tial­ly have a row­ing boat, you can not change it entire­ly, but sim­ply buy such a mod­ule for it.

The tran­som can be alu­minum or wood. Here it is impor­tant to look both at the mate­r­i­al itself and at attach­ing it to the base. Most often, man­u­fac­tur­ers use a design with grooves. That is, the boat has recess­es into which a pan­el is insert­ed before inflat­ing. The best option is an alu­minum tran­som. It is light­weight, durable and is not afraid of con­tact with water. This will also affect the price, but insignif­i­cant­ly, and it is not worth sav­ing on such a detail.

Types of PVC boats

Rowing

These are small boats designed for one or two peo­ple. They are used by anglers to swim in the mid­dle of the lake or move along a calm riv­er.

Move­ment is car­ried out exclu­sive­ly by oars, so the area of ​​appli­ca­tion has lim­i­ta­tions in dis­tance. But on it you can also go down from a moun­tain riv­er, pro­vid­ed that there are no steep and sharp rapids (sports tourism).

Advan­tages:

• afford­able cost;
• light weight;
• pad­dles includ­ed;
• can be trans­port­ed in a bag-case by hand;
• quick­ly inflat­ed with a pump.

Flaws:

• small load capac­i­ty;
• may cap­size in high waves;
• nowhere to mount the motor;
• many mod­els with­out keel.

Motor

There are dif­fer­ent sizes, which can accom­mo­date from two to eight peo­ple. The tails of the cylin­ders at the stern pro­trude far beyond the bot­tom, which gives high buoy­an­cy and the cor­rect posi­tion of the hull at max­i­mum engine speeds.

The motor is mount­ed on a stan­dard place-tran­som. Boats are used for boat trips, trolling, water rides,

Advan­tages:

• fast move­ment on water;
• stronger struc­tures in terms of rigid­i­ty;
• inde­pen­dent air com­part­ments;
• hard floor;
• there is a keel;
• a large selec­tion of pow­er units in terms of pow­er.

Flaws:

• expen­sive;
• weigh a lot;
• lengthy assem­bly of all parts before use.

Motor-rowing with a hinged transom

Such boats are dis­tin­guished by more blunt hull shapes, which does not allow them to devel­op greater speed, but move­ment is pos­si­ble both by row­ing and from the motor blades.

The lat­ter is mount­ed on a rigid pan­el at the rear, but if desired, can be detached and used with­out a pow­er unit. This species is wide­ly used in fish­ing, hunt­ing or boat trips.

Advan­tages:

• var­i­ous length sizes;
• suf­fi­cient buoy­an­cy;
• equipped with medi­um pow­er motors;
• can be used with­out an engine;
• com­pact dimen­sions dur­ing trans­porta­tion;
• thick PVC fab­ric.

Flaws:

• use­ful lug­gage space depends on the diam­e­ter of the cylin­ders;
• not suit­able for inter­ac­tion with pow­er­ful motors.

Design features

What are the addi­tions and design fea­tures?

A mod­ern inflat­able boat may well be com­fort­able. Man­u­fac­tur­ers try to equip them with as many options as pos­si­ble. For exam­ple, it is very con­ve­nient if the boat has hold­ers for spin­ning rods

. After all, we are talk­ing about fish­ing, and thanks to such mod­ules you can fish with sev­er­al rods and not expe­ri­ence dis­com­fort. Would be a nice addi­tion
awning
attached to the bow. It will pro­tect your lug­gage from get­ting wet in the rain, and with a large size it will cov­er you too.

You should also pay atten­tion to trans­port mod­ules.

If your boat has a tran­som wheel mount, you won’t have to drag the boat on the bot­tom on the ground. A very handy thing for a sin­gle exit to the water. If the boat is dou­ble, the advan­tage will be the pres­ence
shrouds on the sidem
. They are com­fort­able to hold and help with car­ry­ing.

Speed ​​characteristics

Tell us, what is the max­i­mum speed that your kit devel­ops (indi­cate the motor and its mod­i­fi­ca­tion) and in what con­di­tions? Do you attach impor­tance to the speed char­ac­ter­is­tics of a fish­ing boat?

Grinya

This will cause a lot of indig­na­tion, but I believe that for a fish­er­man these kilo­me­ters are from the evil one, I have nowhere to rush. The main thing is that the kit eas­i­ly goes on the glid­er. Hav­ing inflat­ed my Suzu­ki 9.9 AS, I was pleas­ant­ly sur­prised — on a 10-pitch pro­peller, my boat pulls four peo­ple onto the glid­er, and with­out any strain. In short, I didn’t mea­sure, I don’t mea­sure and I don’t see the point in it.

Admin

I did not spe­cial­ly improve any­thing, did not suf­fo­cate and did not change the screws. I have a boat for fish­ing, not for rac­ing. The motor is now “Yama­ha 8”. Mea­sure­ments were tak­en just for the sake of inter­est, when dri­ving with full fish­ing equip­ment. With me one goes 33 km / h. Togeth­er I mea­sured the speed only once, we went against the cur­rent on the Ob and a strong wind, the speed was 23 km / h.

Morozov14

The cata­ma­ran is equipped with a MARLIN 25 AWRS engine with an elec­tri­cal start­ing sys­tem and a remote con­trol sys­tem. Max Speed:

• With a load of 1 per­son (80kg) + 20 liters of fuel + 15kg bat­tery + 10kg steer­ing con­sole in still water about 47km / h
• With a load of 2 peo­ple (80kg + 100kg) + 20 liters of fuel + 15kg bat­tery + 10kg steer­ing con­sole in still water about 43km / h

Speed ​​char­ac­ter­is­tics are not so impor­tant for fish­ing, but for out­door activ­i­ties and mul­ti-day raft­ing on the riv­er and the sea.

DmG

The max­i­mum speed in still water of my set “Com­pass-400” + “Yama­ha 9.9GMHS” (fla­vored at 15 hp) with me (76kg) + 24l tank turned out to be 49.5km / h. With “Tohat­su 18” — 51–52km / h. These speeds are more impor­tant to me for rac­ing. When fish­ing, the high speed of the kit allows you to keep a good cruis­ing speed with an eco­nom­i­cal engine oper­a­tion mode (3/4 gas). It turns out fuel econ­o­my, high­er trav­el radius.

Color

What is the best col­or for fish­ing?

The ques­tion “which boat to choose” con­cerns not only the tech­ni­cal side, but also the visu­al one. For fish­ing this is very impor­tant. If your mod­el is paint­ed in acid col­ors and looks like a life raft, you can for­get about catch­ing cau­tious preda­tors such as wall­eye. A sus­pi­cious fish sim­ply does not want to approach defi­ant­ly bright objects. That is why while fish­ing you need to remain as incon­spic­u­ous and secre­tive as pos­si­ble. In reeds and thick­ets, a cam­ou­flage col­or would be the best option. And if you are fish­ing in open water, shades of blue and green will work well. They are prac­ti­cal­ly invis­i­ble from under­wa­ter.

Aqua 3400 NDND

high density pvc

The den­si­ty of reli­ably weld­ed PVC is 900 units, which makes it pos­si­ble to fish in the most dense thick­ets and not be afraid of an acci­den­tal col­li­sion with drift­wood and bot­tom snag.Rat­ing mem­ber:
20 best PVC boats

Bleed valve

Many PVC boats today are assem­bled using bleed valves. The bleed valve helps bleed excess air and pre­vents the boat from over­flat­ing. Also, the oper­a­tion of the bleed valve is impor­tant when the boat is inflat­ed for a long time in the sun — when the cylin­ders swell, the valve begins to bleed excess air itself. It is desir­able that your boat has this type of valve.

Manufacturers

Which man­u­fac­tur­er to choose?
The mar­ket for PVC boats is huge and diverse. At the same time, there are no clear­ly defined lead­ers on it. If we talk about Russ­ian com­pa­nies, boats look inter­est­ing Aqua

and
Tonar
. They are durable, reli­able and have long been in demand by fish­ing enthu­si­asts. If the ques­tion of sav­ing is in the first place and you are look­ing for the cheap­est mod­el, then pay atten­tion to the com­pa­ny’s prod­ucts
Pilot
. In terms of cost, this is the best option, but with its own char­ac­ter­is­tics.

If the ques­tion of sav­ing is not worth it at all, and you want to choose the most pow­er­ful boat in all direc­tions, then it makes sense to look at bad­ger

or
Glad­i­a­tor
. These man­u­fac­tur­ers spe­cial­ize in PVC prod­ucts and boast the high­est qual­i­ty. But their price often cor­re­sponds to a full-fledged plas­tic boat.

Top 5. Badger Heavy Duty 370AL

If per­son­al com­fort while fish­ing is not the last thing for you, be sure to pay atten­tion to this PVC boat. The man­u­fac­tur­er has tak­en into account all the nuances that affect con­ve­nience. Banks are adjustable along the entire length of the struc­ture. The width of the boat allows two peo­ple to sit in a row with­out inter­fer­ing with each oth­er. Comes with a canopy, wheels and spare oar­locks with oars. When buy­ing this boat, you take a fin­ished prod­uct that can be launched imme­di­ate­ly. A nice addi­tion would be a lam­i­nat­ed tran­som. It is plas­tic, but thanks to a spe­cial coat­ing it does not slip and you can com­fort­ably stand on it.

Char­ac­ter­is­tics:

RUB 66,200 / Rus­sia (pro­duced in South Korea) / Pay­load (kg): 1050

Top 4. Aqua 3400 NDND

Inex­pen­sive two-seater boat with a high den­si­ty of plas­tic. It here is 900 units, which makes it pos­si­ble not to be afraid of an acci­den­tal punc­ture in a col­li­sion with an obsta­cle. Reeds will not be noticed at all by this boat, which is an impor­tant advan­tage for fish­ing. The design is equipped with mov­able oar­locks and an alu­minum tran­som for attach­ing an out­board motor. There are also shrouds for car­ry­ing and skids that reg­u­late the dis­tance between the land­ing banks. The bot­tom is hard here. Option­al­ly, you can choose an alu­minum or ply­wood insert. The price of this, of course, will change, but not much.

Char­ac­ter­is­tics:

29 800 rub. / Rus­sia / Load capac­i­ty (kg): 250

PVC fabrics HEYtex and Unisol

Before the advent of PVC fab­ric HEY­tex in the pro­duc­tion of inflat­able cata­ma­rans, we used the wide­ly used fab­ric of the Unisol brand. How­ev­er, when using this fab­ric, it was more dif­fi­cult to fold the cata­ma­ran into a pack­age, for exam­ple, on the White Sea, where the water tem­per­a­ture is 7–10 degrees. The cooled cylin­ders did not roll up so tight­ly. There­fore, the use of fab­ric with high plas­tic­i­ty is prefer­able in our Russ­ian con­di­tions, espe­cial­ly in spring and autumn.

PVC fab­ric pro­duc­tion

Top 3. GLADIATOR Professional D420AL

An inflat­able boat for those who are not used to sav­ing on their own com­fort and con­ve­nience. Ide­al for fish­ing and hunt­ing. The den­si­ty of PVC here is 1100 units, that is, you should not be afraid of a punc­ture. A rigid tran­som allows you to install a motor, and its max­i­mum pow­er can reach 40 horse­pow­er. This is not so much, con­sid­er­ing that the design is designed for sev­en peo­ple. At least that’s what the docs say. In fact, it will be prob­lem­at­ic to place such a com­pa­ny. The boat is pret­ty cramped. But 5–6 fish­er­men will fit com­fort­ably here, and 4 will not even inter­fere with each oth­er. Cam­ou­flage col­or­ing, an option­al canopy in the bow and a dense alu­minum bot­tom will be addi­tion­al advan­tages that par­tial­ly off­set the not-so-low price tag.

Char­ac­ter­is­tics:

51 000 rub. / Chi­na / Load capac­i­ty (kg): 900

Top 2. TONAR Skipper 260

Clas­sic dou­ble boat of uni­ver­sal design. Can move equal­ly fast in any direc­tion. The design is equipped with run­ners for cans, thanks to which the seats can be adjust­ed by remov­ing or bring­ing them clos­er to each oth­er. There are also con­ve­nient oar­locks with a clamp. You sim­ply put the oars in the most com­fort­able posi­tion and fix them. Now they will not move out of place and it will be as com­fort­able as pos­si­ble to dri­ve the boat. Pleased with the car­ry­ing capac­i­ty of the ves­sel. It is 210 kilo­grams, that is, even when two peo­ple land, there will be a good mar­gin for trans­port­ing lug­gage and catch.

Char­ac­ter­is­tics:

11 200 rub. / Rus­sia / Load capac­i­ty (kg): 210