Keep your inflatable on the water.
Not underneath it.
This is your hub for understanding what’s happening to your boat and how to address it the right way. Learn how to patch, reinforce, and renew using products engineered specifically for Hypalon and PVC inflatables. Each method is backed by decades of field use – from recreational boaters to the US Navy.
Getting Started
This is Important
The first step to repairing or restoring your boat is to make sure it holds air correctly. All inflatables, regardless of manufacturer, develop porousity problems over time. This simply means small pin-hole leaks develop in the fabric or seams that can not be seen from the outside. When this happens, the air chambers will typically leak air slowly over a day or two. These pinhole leaks must be repaired before applying any top-coating products such as Liquid Rubber or Topside Paint, or down the road, your boat will develop air bubbles under the top coating.
For this reason, we highly recommend you treat your boat with Sealant as a first step. Sealant is an internal sealer that has been used by the US Navy and Coast Guard since 1985 to cure porosity problems. We also recommend re-treating older boats every year or two as new porosity problems will develop over time.
Remember, inflatable boat repair of kayaks, rafts, dinghies, or tow toys is dependent on proper preparation of the surface area. If you do not clean your inflatable as instructed, you are wasting your time and the products you have purchased.
Humidity can seriously affect the quality of patches, paint, liquid rubber and liquid tear repair products.
When you are sure your boat is holding air, the next step is to be sure you are working with a clean and dry surface. If possible, take your inflatable boat or other repair item into a room with low humidity, or perform the repair when humidity is below the manufacturer’s recommendations.
Check out our Cleaning and Preparation Products, specially formulated to prepare your inflatable for patches, rubber and paint!
Special Note to PVC boat owners
For the past several years, many boat manufacturers have been using PVC material from China. The reasons for this vary, but usually include cost as the main factor. As a result, the frequency of boaters reporting a ‘breakdown” in the material has risen drastically. The PVC material will actually start to decompose, resulting in a sticky or tacky surface, especially when exposed to intense sun like we have here in south Florida. If this condition exists on your boat, be very cautious in using any top coating product as it may not dry and cure properly. Always test a small area first.
Repair
Fix leaks and keep your inflatable performing at its best
Repairing an Inflatable Boat usually involves patching holes. (For re-skinning worn areas, read about our Liquid Rubber product.)
Two types of holes are common in inflatable boats; holes you can see and holes you cannot see. For the holes you can find, the best repair is always to patch it with material and glue. You will need to know the material your boat is made of (Hypalon or PVC) as the better glues are specific to the material. Click here to read more about inflatable boat materials.
Inland Marine USA provides Patch Kits for either Hypalon or PVC boats. The kit includes a 4 oz container of the approporiate glue for the material, and a 6” x 12” piece of material. In most cases, an external patch is sufficient, but for larger holes (1/2” diameter or more), we recommend an internal patch in addition to an external patch, thus sandwiching the hole between two patches.
The second types of holes are what boat manufacturers call “porosity.” All inflatables, regardless of manufacturer, develop pinhole leaks over time. Typically, your boat loses air over a day or two but you cannot find a hole on the outside to patch. We make our Sealant for this repair. Inland Marine USA Sealant has been used by the US Navy, Coast Guard, and boaters worldwide since 1985. It is an internal sealer that cures 100% and can be used on any type of boat, (Hypalon or PVC/Neoprene).
Seal
Stop hard-to-find leaks from the inside out
Inland Marine Sealant® is specially formulated for use with inflatable boats, rafts and tow toys.
This sealant forms a bond with the interior fabric of the inflatable stopping or “sealing” slow leaks and inhibits future leaks from developing. In one easy step, leaks are cured from the inside which are virtually impossible to find from the outside.
Inland Marine Sealant is the only product of its kind which allows for future deflation of your inflatable (for storage, etc.) without the skin sticking to itself and making re-inflation virtually impossible. This is why Inland Marine Sealant has a 5-Star product rating from West Marine™, and has been used by the US Navy and Yachters worldwide since 1986.
How it's used
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The time you used to spend pumping up the dinghy every few days you can now spend “bonding” with your crew, working on your tan, doing 12 oz. curls, or if you really want to work, figuring out how to attach the charcoal grill to the life line without dropping parts overboard. One quart seals a 12 foot boat. Now, if you want the outside to look and function like new, use our Liquid Rubber® and Top Side Paint®.
Skin
Restore worn surfaces with a seamless, pure-rubber coating that lasts for years.
Inland Marine Liquid Rubber® is truly a unique breakthrough in the rubber field. For the first time, we are able to get 100% pure EPDM rubber in liquid form to cure without vulcanizing; that is applying high heat and pressure at the same time, which is what the manufacturer did when your boat was made.
The consistency of honey, Liquid Rubber “paints” on to form a seamless, leakproof membrane of pure rubber. Available in black, white and gray, one quart will renew a 10-foot boat with a coating 3-4 mils thick when applied according to the easy-to-follow instructions. Multiple coats may be applied for thicker applications. (If you can paint a wall, you can do this.)
Liquid Rubber truly renews and restores your boat to its new condition, even if your boat has lost some of its outer skin and even if the fabric is showing through. Use Inland Marine Liquid Rubber to spot repair or reinforce those heavy wear spots before they wear through, or re-skin the entire boat with Liquid Rubber to add years of serviceability to your boat.
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Now that your boat functions like new, let’s make it look like new with Inland Marine TopSide Paint® and Numbering/ Stencil Kit®.
Inland Marine USA Top Side Paint
This is NOT your daddy’s boat paint!
This is not the paint your Daddy used on his boat! (And not anywhere close to the paint sitting next to it on the shelf at your marine store.)
Inland Marine Top Side Paint® is specially formulated to have the elasticity and UV resistance required for use with inflatable boats. Because inflatable boats expand in the hot sun and contract at night in the cooler temperatures, constantly flexing, ordinary paint or vinyl stick-on numbers will not stay on an inflatable boat for more than a few weeks. But we don’t stop there! We mix our Sealant in our Top Side Paint to further enhance the airtight integrity of your inflatable.
Inland Marine TopSide Paint® is available in Red, International Orange, Yellow, Royal Blue, Grey, Black or White. (With changing weather conditions in many areas boaters frequent, International Orange or Yellow makes it easy to find your dinghy at the dinghy dock if a “Rum Front” comes through while you’re ashore.)
Top Side Paint Tips
If you want to improve the looks of your inflatable a new coat of paint will always work. Make your inflatable unique. Add color and style to your inflatable restoration project. Inland Marine USA‘s paint may be used on new inflatables to make them look new or on old inflatables to make them look new again.
We recommend that you use our Liquid Rubber before you paint your inflatable. This will make the surface of your inflatable like new. Many of our customers have used Liquid Rubber and our Top Side Paint to repair and restore inflatables that were 10 to 15 years old. To make your inflatable more reliable, use our three-step process:
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Of course, we recommend using Inalnd Marine USA products! When you’re done, make it more difficult to steal by using our almost indestructible Numbering Kits.
Video How-To
Identify
Trusted, Coast-Guard Approved Numbering Kits
Rename or apply a custom message to your dinghy. (Our favorite is “Refurbished with Inland Marine USA Products,” but we do see a lot of “If Found Return Captain to [Boats Name].”)
Each kit contains a complete set of 3-inch high stencils with all numbers and letters, a brush and our special paint in your choice of colors. There’s more than enough paint to provide a permanent registration number and name on your inflatable.
Stop Theft.
Theft is a real problem for inflatable boat owners worldwide. Many inflatable boats look alike; it is easy to remove glue-on numbers or numbers that are painted on with paints that are not made for inflatable boats.
Like our Top Side Paint, the paint in our Numbering Kit has the elasticity needed to stretch and shrink as the air in the chamber expands and contracts.
The primary reason we developed our Numbering Kit was because we received a large number of requests from boaters in the 1980s and ’90s requesting a numbering system for inflatable boats that could not be easily removed by thieves.
When used according to the instructions provided, the numbers applied with our Numbering Kit can only be removed by abrading the numbers off the inflatable. This makes your inflatable boat much more secure and will cause potential thieves to move on to an easier target.
