Waiting at the Portland Harbor boat ramp, behind the sailboat and Maine skiff and power catamaran, the 7-meter Ribcraft doesn’t need its gun mount and blue strobe to look military.
It’s a 24’x8’8” rigid hull inflatable boat on steroids. The latest iteration by Ribcraft USA, Marblehead, Mass., has pumped up the Navy’s high-speed launch.
The Cummins diesels of earlier models are replaced by smaller, lighter Steyr multifuel engine that can burn diesel or JP-4 or JP-8 aircraft fuel.
“For the Navy, it’s all about weight,” explained Matthew Velluto, director of business development with Ribcraft, who put the late-model Navy version through its paces for a WorkBoat photo shoot yesterday.
Last December Ribcraft won a five-year Navy contract to produce the 7-meters, used for everything from lifesaving to ship escort and force security. (California's Willard Marine also has a five-year contract to build the same sized RIBs.)
The boats have the 254-hp inboard Steyr engine linked a Bravo Two stern drive. The RIBs float in 15” of water with the drive raised and run a draft around 24” with the drive down. There’s a waterjet option for special purpose boats.
At the stern stands a spiked antenna, the transmit/receiving end of a Briartek ORCA man overboard indicator system that’s triggered when someone falls over the side and a personal radio transponder goes off.
To protect the crew and other vessels, there’s a mount forward for the standard M-60/M-240 medium 7.62-mm machine guns.
But it’s a speedboat, not a gunboat. Designed to carry up to 18 people crammed along the gunwales and holding on to the lifeline, the 7-meter will approach 30 mph, and easily exceed that with just a security team on board. With me and three others, we easily topped that. It was a great ride on a great little RIB and in great weather.
