In the days of Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington in 1839, the Duke had conducted tests on the times version of the Inflatable in a Pontoon fashion. In years to follow just after the turn of the century, modern advances of the time in the rubber industry allowed the first version of an Inflatable Rubber Raft. Unfortunately, while state of art for the day, there were still many flaws in the production and the rafts developed splits in the seams due to inferior, by today’s standards, in the production process.

Later, with the tragedy of the Titanic’s sinking along with the losses of life in WW! On War Ships which were sunk by enemy submarine torpedoes, there was a real need for Life Rafts in the form of Inflatables. If you were not aware, the major cost of life on the Titanic as well as many other ships of the time was the lack of Life Boats. Can you imagine going on a ship and there were twice the number of people on the ship than there were seats on the Life Boats.

This disaster was shortly there after created the initial SOLAS treaty to avoid such catastrophes again. The main premise of the SOLAS treaty was to ensure that there were adequate numbers of lifeboats aboard all vessels so that every person had a space on a life boat in the event of an emergency. [http://www.imo.org/Conventions/contents.asp?topic_id=257&doc_id=647]

War ships and Passenger Ships had the hardest time to comply with this policy as there were so many people aboard and deck space was not available. Many times they had to stack the Life Boats on top of one another to have the correct number of Lift Boats. Cargo ships had a lesser issue with the compliance as there was plenty of room on the ships with the low number of personnel aboard

Goodyear had discovered a way to better manufacture the Inflatable Boats in between the two World Wars but unfortunately, the conservative though of the time held back its production. The inflatable boats that get produced were life rafts of square-shaped inflated rubber cylinders with a rigid floor. These inflatable rafts were stacked vertically aboard warships on deck.

A man named Pierre Debroutelle designed a new version of the Inflatable Boat in 1937. This model was the premier model with the now traditional U-Shaped inflatable tube. His design was so innovative that it was the first Inflatable Boat to be certified by the French Navy. Subsequently, a wooden transom was created and then patented in 1943. On modern Inflatable Boats, you will be able to distinguish the commonalities between the 1937 model and today’s model.

As with many things, World War II changed the need for and thereby the industry on Inflatable Boats. Submarine attacks in the Battlefield of the Atlantic created escalated numbers of casualties among merchant ships as well as the many warships.

It was at this point that the US warships really started to use rubber life rafts. With the further advances in the rubber processing and manufacturing process over the last 35 years, the Inflatable Boat was accepted and here to stay, and now it was shaped like a boat.

The Inflatable Boat has now traversed the battlefield into the recreation field due to its economical and versatile nature. If you ever wanted a boat, but did not have the finances for a traditional boat, today’s Inflatable Boats are a logical and safe choice.

Don’t even think about Buying a Dinghy without checking out Wyatt Crouch’s editorials on Inflatable Boats so you do not get Sunk buying the wrong one.

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