Re: Boston Whaler Inflatable
OMC inflatables were made by Zodiac out of PVC, not Hypalon. Toyo manufactured Hypalon boats under the Dynous label and under contract for Nissan. Having said that, the Whaler in the picture does look a lot like a Dynous from the the mid 80's and for the boat to still be holding air it would have to be a Hypalon fabric. I suppose it's possible that they built some boats for OMC, but this is the first time I have ever seen one...I learn something new everyday
The information I posted came from original internal BW documents purchased from a former employee who was part of the inflatable project. They included bill of sales and delivery receipts, for all shipments from Japan, some of the later receipts from Korea, and the original BW material specs for the manufactures.
The Japanese & the Koreans built some really nice boats, just a little expensive for us, so they were seldom seen in the west (with the exception of those from BW).
We know for the most part only a couple of western companies, and often assume wrongly, them to be the only quality manufactures in this sector. These companies are increasingly turning to Asia, and in some cases to Eastern Europe (formerly only for military) for the production of their western branded products. Most of the major Japanese brands have long exported this work to China.
China, as Japan did in the past, produces to the required spec of these manufactures, for particular price ranges. It runs from really cheap, to really expensive, those produced for Whaler were rather nice.
