Inflatable boat

An inflatable boat is a lightweight boat constructed with its sides and bow made of flexible tubes containing pressurised gas. For smaller boats, the floor and hull is often flexible, while for boats longer than 3 metres (9.8 ft), the floor typically consists of three to five rigid plywood or aluminium sheets fixed between the tubes, but not joined rigidly together. Often the transom is rigid, providing a location and structure for mounting an outboard motor.

Some inflatable boats have been designed to be disassembled and packed into a small volume, so that they can be easily stored and transported to water when needed. The boat, when inflated, is kept rigid crossways by a foldable removable thwart. This feature allows such boats to be used as liferafts for larger boats or aircraft, and for travel or recreational purposes.

The most common term for inflatable boats is "rubber boat" although rubber is usually no longer used in their construction. Other terms used include "inflatable dinghy", "rubber dinghy", "inflatable", "inflatable rescue boat", and "rubber duck".

There are ancient carved images of animal skins filled with air being used as one-man floats to cross rivers. These floats were inflated by mouth. Sometimes, these images have been wrongly described as ancient scuba.

The discovery of the process to vulcanize rubber was made by Charles Goodyear in 1838, and was granted a US Patent in 1844. In late 1843, Thomas Hancock filed for a UK patent, which was also granted in 1844, after the Goodyear patent had been granted. In 1852, while traveling in England, Charles Goodyear discovered that Thomas Hancock's company was producing vulcanized rubber and sued. It was discovered that Thomas Hancock had been shown a sample of Goodyear's rubber in 1842, but he had not been told the process that made it, and that Hancock said that he came up with his process independently. The last of the suits were settled in 1855. Vulcanization stabilized the rubber allowing it to be both durable and flexible. Shortly thereafter, several people expanded on experimentation of rubber coated fabrics.

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