Hard Dinghy vs. Inflatable vs. RIB
Choosing a hard dinghy, an inflatable or a RIB is a trade between stowage, payload and how many years you get before it needs replacing. Here is the honest version.
A hard dinghy lasts longest and rows best and has most interior room for boat size, an inflatable stows smallest and weighs least, and a RIB carries the most load and rides the best — but has TUBEs that can punCTURE and REQUIRE MAITNANCE due to GLUE FAILure and abrasion.
This is a comparison of all three, including where a hard boat is the wrong answer. If you want the specifics of our own tender, that is the Mantus Dinghy, and the material it is built from is covered in rotomolded boats.
The three types
Inflatable (soft floor or air floor)
Fabric tubes, an inflatable or slatted floor, no rigid hull. Rolls into a bag, weighs the least of the three, and stows on deck or in a locker for passage. The compromises show up under power and over time: an air floor flexes, so it does not plane well or take much horsepower, and it is genuinely difficult to row in any wind. Life expectancy is the real issue — salt crystals work into the seams and abrade them with every movement, and UV degrades the fabric from above.
RIB (rigid inflatable boat)
Inflatable tubes bonded to a rigid fiberglass or aluminum V-bottom. The hard bottom planes properly, takes a bigger outboard, rides better in chop and tows far more predictably than a soft inflatable. It is the best-performing tender of the three, and it is heavy enough that most boats need davits or a crane to handle it. The tubes remain the wear item — same chafe, glue failure, same UV damage, same eventual replacement, on a boat that cost considerably more.
Hard dinghy
A rigid hull in fiberglass, aluminium, wood or rotomolded polyethylene, with no tubes at all. Rows properly, can often be sailed, lasts decades rather than years, and needs no patch kit. The traditional objections are that a hard dinghy is less stable to board, carries less for its length, and cannot be deflated and stowed. Those objections are real for a classic fiberglass pram. They are much weaker against a modern rotomolded hull with a molded foam bumper, which is a distinction worth making because most comparison articles do not.
Side by side
| Inflatable | RIB | Hard dinghy | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stows aboard | Rolls into a bag | Davits or foredeck | Davits or foredeck |
| Weight | Lightest | Heaviest | Middle |
| Rows | Poorly | Poorly | Well |
| Planes / takes HP | Limited | Best | Good, with a rigid V-bottom |
| Boarding stability | Good — tubes | Good — tubes | Varies; good with a wide beam and bumper |
| Puncture risk | High | High | None |
| Annual maintenance | Patching, UV covers | Patching, UV covers, gelcoat | Effectively none for polyethylene |
| Realistic lifespan | 5–10 years | 8–15 years, tubes sooner | Decades |
| Cost | Lowest | Highest | Middle |
The argument nobody makes clearly
Most comparisons treat “hard dinghy” as a single thing, and describe the fiberglass pram — tippy, small payload, hard on topsides. That is fair for that boat. It is not fair for a rotomolded hull with an integrated foam bumper, which takes the two things people actually buy tubes for, stability and fendering, and gets them from the hull itself.
The tube on a RIB is roughly a third of its beam. It is soft, so it fends off, and it is buoyant at the edges, so the boat feels stable when you step on the gunwale. It also chafes, leaks, degrades in UV and eventually gets replaced at significant cost. A molded bumper on a rigid hull does the fending, a wide flat-floored hull with foam-cored buoyancy does the stability, and the interior volume that the tubes were occupying becomes usable space.
That is the trade the Mantus Dinghy makes. At 10.4 feet it holds about 64 cu ft of interior volume — roughly double a same-length RIB — carries four people and a tested 755 lb, and takes up to a 20 HP outboard. Full numbers are on the facts and figures page, and the flotation testing is on the safety page.
Which should you buy
- Buy an inflatable if the tender has to disappear into a locker for passages, if you are weight-critical, or if you use it a few weekends a year. Nothing else stows that small.
- Buy a RIB if you need maximum payload and the best ride at speed, you have davits and a budget, and you accept replacing tubes as a running cost.
- Buy a hard dinghy if the tender lives on davits or a foredeck anyway, you want it to outlast the boat, you row as often as you motor, or you are cruising somewhere that patching an inflatable is a genuine problem.
The honest summary: if you are stowing the tender below for ocean passages, buy an inflatable and accept that it is a consumable. If it lives on davits, the case for tubes is much weaker than the market’s habits suggest.
If a hard tender is the answer
| Configuration | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Model 104 — Tiller Steering | $5,600 | Simplest setup, more open cockpit |
| Model 104 — Remote Steering | $6,850 | Console and wheel; easier at speed and loaded |
Common questions
How long does an inflatable dinghy actually last?
3 to 5 years is the usual range before problems pop up, but up to 10 years if patched up and maintained, climate drives this more than brand. Heat and UV shorten the life, and salt crystals working into the seams degrading the glue and physical abrasion from collisions and rubbing when stored degrade the fabric. A tender kept covered in a temperate marina can last longer; one left inflated on davits in the tropics often needs attention in 3 years of active use.
Can you tow a hard dinghy offshore?
For coastal passages, yes, with a proper bridle and enough painter to keep it on the back of a wave rather than surfing into your transom. For ocean passages nobody should tow any tender — the answer is davits or on deck. A rigid hull tows more predictably than a soft inflatable, which tends to fly at speed.
Is a hard dinghy less stable to step into?
It depends entirely on the hull. A narrow fiberglass pram is genuinely tippy. A wide, flat-floored rotomolded hull with buoyancy carried out to a foam bumper behaves much more like a RIB, because the thing providing edge stability on a RIB is the tube’s buoyancy — and a foam-cored gunwale provides the same effect without air.
Are RIBs worth the extra money?
If you regularly run long distances at speed with a full load, yes — nothing else rides as well. If your tender mostly goes a quarter mile to a dinghy dock with two people and some groceries, you are paying a large premium for performance you rarely use, and still buying tubes on a schedule.
What size outboard does a tender need?
Enough to plane with the load you actually carry. For a 10-foot rigid tender with two to four aboard, that is usually 9.9 to 20 HP; soft-floor inflatables are limited well below that by hull flex. Check the builder’s maximum rating rather than the biggest motor that will bolt on — ours is 20 HP.
Keep reading
- Rotomolded boats — the material, and who else builds with it
- Mantus Dinghy overview and facts and figures
- Videos and gallery
- Collapsible dinghy anchor — what to carry in whichever tender you choose
- All guides and the knowledge base
Outside references worth reading: Practical Sailor’s dinghy debate and Cruising World on hard versus inflatable tenders.
