Vessel Report: Collared

A Silver Ships dive support RIB at the Marine Combatant Dive Center in Panama City, Fla.

Collared

RIB manufacturers must keep up with technology.

By Michael Crowley, Correspondent

MetalCraft Marine has a long track record of building RIBs for the Navy. But its current order from the Navy for 67 RIBs represents a rst — all of the RIBs will come with MetalCraft’s push knees built into the bow.

The rubber push knees protect the collar and when engaged with a seawall they stick to it. A RIB’s stern might be moving up and down but the bow “is stuck to that wall and not moving,” said Bob Clark, partner and contracts manager at Kingston, Ontario, and Watertown, N.Y.-based MetalCraft. “Everybody is blown away by how they work.” He compares it to how a crew transfer vessel works when up against an offshore wind tower

A couple of special features built into a pair of MetalCraft Marine Interceptor RIBs — an eight-meter (26'6"×8'5") and 10-meter (34'×9'19") — for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, are a fold-down bow and a pair of Porta Products transom brackets with 425-hp Yamaha outboards.

The fold-down bow is incorporated into the deck and when the bow is opened a ladder slides out, becoming in effect a bow ramp, allowing crewmembers to come and go during beach landings and facilitating diving. In 2022, Clark called that feature, “a revolutionary change for RIBs.”

When the outboards are mounted on the Porta Products brackets and trimmed up, they are above the bottom of the boat. “You can drive in 10 inches of water and never damage the props,” said Clark.

In addition, the brackets put the outboards 22" behind the transom “giving you more trimability.” Clark said the Porta Products brackets are “truly unique and very robust.” With the brackets, he said, the Yamahas “performed beautifully,” hitting 50 knots.

Clark said a trend in RIB design is “mounting the collar higher and higher out of the water.” When the collar is in the water, although it holds the boat up, it limits a RIBs ability to turn. Move the collar up and the RIB makes much sharper turns. Currently, MetalCraft collars are 8" to 10" above the water, which Clark said, is “the highest collar on the bigger boats.”

SILVER SHIPS

Silver Ships Inc., Theodore, Ala., builds many RIBs for the military. Several of them have been 20'×12' (6.7m×3.6m) and 20'×17' (6.7m×5.1m) Amber series RIBs for the Navy’s highspeed maneuverable surface target (HSMST) program. The HSMST RIBs are converted to remote control and employed as live- re training targets for shipboard personnel.