Inflatable boats
This category holds the boats themselves, from rowing dinghies to motor boats. The first split is the RIB with its rigid hull against the fully inflatable one that rolls into a bag. The number of chambers is a safety figure, because if one goes, the rest keep the boat afloat. And the transom decides whether an engine will hang on it and which shaft length suits it.
Inflatable boats
This category holds the boats themselves, from rowing dinghies to motor boats, while engines, pumps and electronics sit in the category above. An inflatable boat differs from a rigid one in that the tube holds its shape by pressure rather than by material, which is exactly why it rolls into a bag and travels in the boot. The keel under the hull is either flat or inflatable in a V, and the second holds a line better and gets onto the plane sooner. Packed size and weight count for more than you expect, because you usually carry the boat down to the water on your own.
The first split reads RIB or roll-up boat. A RIB has a rigid hull of laminate, aluminium or composite with the inflatable tubes joined along the sides, so it runs faster and carries more, only it will not fold away. A roll-up boat is inflatable throughout and rolls into a bag once deflated, and that is the whole point of it. You feel the difference on the water too, because a rigid hull keeps its shape even in waves, whereas a soft one flexes and swallows part of the engine power.
The second thing is the number of chambers, and it is purely a matter of safety. The ISO 6185 standard excludes from its scope boats whose tube consists of a single air chamber, so any boat worth the name always has several. When one chamber goes, the rest keep the boat afloat and leave you time to reach the bank. The keel and the inflatable floor are often chambers of their own as well, counted in the total sometimes and sometimes not, so look at how many make up the tube itself.
The third is the transom, that is the board at the stern the engine hangs on. Without one the boat stays a rowing boat, with one it becomes a motor boat, and it is made of plywood or aluminium. Its height has to match the shaft length of the engine, because a short shaft on a tall transom draws air and a long one on a low transom brakes for nothing. On roll-up boats the transom is often removable, which shrinks the bag but adds a step to the build.
The last is the fabric spec, and this is where the numbers get muddled. Denier is the mass in grams of nine thousand metres of yarn and decitex of ten thousand, so eleven hundred D and eleven hundred dtex are not the same thing, even though descriptions swap them. In practice eleven hundred dtex and nine tenths of a millimetre are the usual standard for leisure boats, while two thousand dtex and one point two millimetres go where the boat works for a living.
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