Hurricane 630 from Zodiac -a 22 foot Dive Boat

By Peter Vassilopoulos

When the military says we want you to design an inflatable with a door in the side, the answer is a simple "yessir!" and "How many would you like sir?"

Well Zodiac rose to the challenge of designing and building a boat that carries a large payload for its size, moves quickly on the water with minimal effort, provides a stable platform for divers-and has a door in the side.

The open door pontoon design which Zodiac innovated for their special purpose rigid inflatables (RIBs) was originally required for allowing trained seals to board easily. This same design has found favour with divers­commercial, military and recreational.

The boat tested was built for the services in the USA. It is 22 feet in length with a beam of 8.5 feet. The fibreglass hull is 19 feet. It has a tee-top fibreglass centre console and a bolster seat that incorporate strong standing handrails. In the centre console is a large built-in watertight storage bin and in the floor of the fibreglass hull are several storage lockers including an anchor and chain locker. The boat is equipped with a robust radar frame with tow bollards, bow post and a stainless steel bow shoe (for beaching). The helm has electronics and installation points for radio, compass, switches and accessories.

The overall configuration allows for the use of the boat as a diving tender. It has immense scuppers in the transom that drain overboard through the stern. The batteries are located behind watertight hatches.

There are four stainless steel lift points. Grabrail lines are located along the top of the pontoons attached to stainless steel D-rings. There are hefty grab handles under the pontoons for divers to hold onto at the surface. A heavy duty rubbing strake is vulcanized along the sides as a permanent fender.

The big feature of this boat is its removable 40 inch side door. This is an inflatable pontoon section that when deflated slides out of its position between the forward and aft pontoons. To hold the door in place the construction incorporates a solid ring that appears to be part of the inflatable tubes.

The craft was fitted with an underpowered outboard engine for the demonstration and will be refitted with a 175 hp outboard before delivery. Despite the low power on the demo ride the boat performed well. It was quick to respond to the throttle and handled very well. We took it out on a blustery day when the wind was whipping the water into a chop and swell of over two feet at places. At full throttle and with an estimated speed of over 30 mph we skipped over top of the waves and landed softly in the troughs. During an entire half hour of beating through and across these conditions with four adult males aboard no spray had reached the windshield of the centre console. It was a dry ride.