Ships – Boats – boat component – or attachment – Collapsible
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-30
2001-03-06
Sotelo, Jesus D. (Department: 3617)
Ships
Boats, boat component, or attachment
Collapsible
C114S359000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06196152
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an improved grid-like construction boat, specifically designed for use as a tender or trip boat.
To have, at sea or lake places, a small boat for performing short trips along the coastline, represents an increasing requirement for those persons spending their free time for hobby or relaxation purposes, or for holidays, at the mentioned water places.
Also known is that pleasure boaters find as increasingly comfortable to use small boats, the socalled “tenders” for accessing the shore, while leaving anchored offshore, at will or as required, their large sail or motor boat.
For meeting the above requirements, the prior art provides a lot of rubber boats, either including or not rigid keels, and small boats made of a glass reinforced resin material, aluminium alloys, or wood materials.
While the above small boats solve the mentioned technical problem, they are however affected by several disadvantages.
In fact, said prior boats, either of a rigid or of a inflatable type hull have a comparatively large size. The rigid hull boats, in addition, also have the further drawback that they take up a large portion of the main boat deck; thus suitable and expensive pulley and rope assemblies should be provided on the main boat deck to hold the tenders raised from water and out-board. The inflatable hull boats, in turn, while being less affected by the above drawback, require very tedious inflating and deflating operations.
Another common drawback of said prior small boats is the comparatively great weight thereof, very critical for the user at the start and end of the sailing season, i.e. when the boats are launched onto water or removed therefrom.
Yet another drawback of prior small boats is their high cost, in particular as they are provided, as conventional, with outboard motors.
Furthermore, the maintenance of said boats, with the exception of small aluminium boats, is very complex; this is true both for inflatable and rigid boats, and, in particular, wood and out-board motor boats.
Actually, the first type of boats require a very skilled and accurate labour, while the second boats require a skilled maintenance on their motor assemblies.
It should be apparent that these maintenance requirements represent an additional cost for the users of said boats which, even if small, can not be however eliminated.
The document WO96/39323 discloses a grid-like construction boat according to the preamble of claim
1
.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, the main object of the present invention is to overcome the above mentioned drawback of prior small boats.
Thus to achieve the above mentioned aim, the invention, provides an improved grid-like construction boat, specifically designed for use as a tender or a trip boat, which can be series-made at low cost, has a small weight, is reliable, safe, simple to use, with a reduced size and small maintenance requirements.
In brief, the inventive boat is an improved grid-like construction boat, specifically designed for use as a tender and comprises a central tubular framework, a plurality of tubular elements coupled to said central tubular framework, and one or more impermeable fabric plies also coupled to said central tubular framework, and encompassing said central tubular framework and said tubular elements.
The improved grid-like construction boat, specifically designed for use as a tender, according to the invention, is characterized in by the characterizing features of claim
1
.
The improved grid-like construction boat, specifically designed for use as a tender or a trip boat according to the invention, provides the following advantages.
The subject boat has a very small weight, if compared to that of small prior boats, with a great advantage from the transport standpoint.
The size of the boat, in its disassembled condition, is very small, thereby it can be easily stored on board of the main boat.
Moreover, the boat according to the present invention can be easily assembled without using assembling tools such as manual air pumps, compressors and the like.
The cost of the subject boat, moreover, is much smaller than that of prior like boats, because of its constructional simplicity, and the possibility of it by small and large series operation.
The inventive boat, furthermore, does not require any maintenance, due to the materials used for making the component pieces forming said boat, thereby allowing the user to achieve great time and money savings.
REFERENCES:
patent: 1573958 (1926-02-01), Whall
patent: 1857816 (1932-05-01), Cantzler
patent: 3070816 (1963-01-01), Lewis
patent: 3075207 (1963-01-01), Lewis
patent: 4290157 (1981-09-01), Jensen, Jr.
patent: 5615634 (1997-04-01), Gonda
Hedman & Costigan PC
Sotelo Jesus D.
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