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| Robert Avis tests a popular selling model, well suited to offshore performance use.
First Impressions
The first time I tried to test a Ballistic RIB, the skies were grey, the sea was rough and everything seemed to be against us. Now a year or two later, the same thing has happened again! One thing that I certainly don’t have any apprehension about is getting out in the rough in a Ballistic. You only have to look at the design and layout to know that this has been put together not by just a designer, but by someone who actually goes and understands boating. The hulls are manufactured in South Africa and imported to the UK by JBT Marine. You can have any tube colour as long as it’s grey and any hull colour so long as it’s white, so says the literature, and if you’ve any experience in Ribbing, you’ll know that grey is without doubt the most practical sponson colour if you are going to make serious use of your boat and not spend all day polishing it! To break up the greyness, it’s liberally appended with navy blue patches and pads to add that British nautical appeal. Our test boat was fitted with a Yamaha 150hp HPDI two-stroke engine and I’ve included the test results on the same boat with a Yamaha 150hp four-stroke which I did previously but you must take into account that the HPDI was fighting a very short sharp Solent chop whilst the four-stroke had no more than a mirror sea to contend with.
Layout
The Ballistic 6.5 RIB comes as standard with a high protective console and four jockey seats. The forward seating can be converted into a sunbed (extra £1,500) and although the console is set relatively far aft, this does leave a good space forward for a variety of carrying uses. You could argue that there is not much room aft but I found there was plenty of space for my camera bag to remain dry between the aft seats and moving from bow to stern was easy. The front of the console has a bench seat which could seat two but there’s nothing in the way of a handgrip to steady yourselves if things start getting wild.
The stainless steel ‘A’ frame at the stern is of massive construction and will support whatever you require in the way of aerials, antennae, lights etc. and, what a sensible idea - cleats fitted as part of the ‘A’ frame construction keeping the aft berthing lines well clear of the tubes and avoiding the inevitable rubbing that otherwise takes place - good thinking.
Wherever you look there are lockers for all your clobber. The bow seats open up, under the console front seat there’s more, each of the jockey seats will hold a worthwhile amount and inside the console it’s a cavern. There’s also an anchor locker in the bow. So no storage problems. The deck drains aft to a small well with automatic bilge pump and it was interesting to note that even through the hail and thunder we encountered during the test, the decks drained away quickly and were soon pumped effortlessly overboard.
Sea keeping, handling and performance
If you’ve ever taken the trouble to look under a RIB, you’ll know that there are generally a number of spray rails on each side which cynical wives would say create all the spray that lands on them but somehow always manages to miss the driver, but that’s another thing! On a Ballistic the rails appear to curve outwards from the bow and continue throughout the boat’s length. But they’re not spray rails as such. The whole of the bottom is a series of longitudinal reverse scallops. From a photographic perspective they’re great for adding interest but what do they do for performance? The theory is that they give added lift when the boat is planing which should in turn leave less of the hull in contact with the surface and equate to additional knots per horsepower. The question is of course does this marketing hype have any credence in a short sharp Solent chop? Those of you who know me will know that I’m not, well, in the first flush of youth, in fact I sat in my first RIB more than forty years ago and I’m not easily impressed but I have to say, the ride you get in a Ballistic is different to RIBs with a more conventional undercarriage layout.
The deep vee certainly gave a soft ride, the boat got on the plane very fast without creating a huge hump, and when she took off she went like the wind. There is no doubt that there is plenty of lift but the weight of the boat kept her on an even keel and even when we got airborne on odd occasions, there was no sign whatsoever of losing the bow to the wind. The real difference is that the chines keep the boat running in a very straight line almost like being on railway tracks. This is particularly noticeable on landing awkwardly on a wave when the chines soon straighten any sideways drift with a positive jerk into a straight fore and aft line which needs to be prepared for. I have to say that the overall performance was impressive and when comparing the speed and acceleration results with this two-stroke engine and comparing it with Yamaha’s four-stroke equivalent, there’s not a great deal to choose between them other than the two-stroke is initially much quicker off the mark and in similar conditions will go that bit faster. Unfortunately my fervent desire to retain a complete set of teeth and unperforated tongue precluded full speed being attained!
Value for money
No one ever said RIBs were cheap and I guess when you compare them with many American sports boat imports, they’re a relatively expensive way to get on the water, however they are also an extremely safe way to go boating, they’re very forgiving if you get it wrong and, let’s face it, nothing quite comes close to the exhilaration you can get from a good RIB ride. So where does this Ballistic fit in? Well the demo boat tested is offered at £26,999 including sunbed and trailer so it’s already £3,601 less than list price which must really go against ‘the Mole’s’ natural instinct. When you look at other boats of a similar size, it’s towards the top of the price league, but actually that’s exactly where I’d expect it to be and where it deserves to be.
Summary
When you test RIBs on a regular basis, there sometimes comes a point where it is difficult to find something to say that hasn’t been said before, but the longitudinal reverse scallop chines have changed all that! They were fascinating to look at, they make a great photo, they really did seem to do their stuff and if you think 6.5m isn’t large enough, why not take a look at the 7.8m model - it’s bigger, better and wow!
Robert Avis
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