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Wayne.B

On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:52:41 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

Inflatable companies have the CG in their pockets..There are
practically no limits on engine size on those things, not worth being
a limit anyway.. but the same size boat made of wood would have a
limit of somewhere near 25-35 horsepower, inflatable the same size,
probably somewhere near 200+

The latest generation of USCG and LEO boats are interesting. They
look like inflatables (RIBs) but really are not. Instead they have a
rigid deep-V hull with what looks like a semi-rigid flotation collar
around it. I'm guessing it's foam filled hard rubber or something
like that. These boats are really powered up as you mentioned, twin
and triple 250s being very common. Customs and border patrol has one
docked locally with (5) 225s on it. I recently met one of the guys
who runs it and he confirms that it moves right along but not quite as
fast as I would have thought. That probably has something to do with
the weight of the extensive "equipment" they carry. SOP for runaways
is rifled 12 ga slugs to the fleeing engines, quite effective
apparently. Backup is 30 cal and 50 cal machine guns. South Florida
still has a bit of an "old west" quality to it because of our local
drug and refugee smuggling operations.