Gang Plank Storage and drying

I pulled the gang plank out yesterday and after inflating it, to my dismay, realized it had a hole!!! WTF??? After closer inspection I know how it happened. The zipper on this thing is large and heavy duty. Due to the way I had folded it, the teeth of it apparently dug into vinyl and punctured it. The repair was simple and should hold with tear aid, but it got me to wondering what the best method of storing this thing would be to avoid future punctures. I decided to fold it in half along the 10' distance and then zipper it on itself so that now I have a 3' by 10' section. Then I simply rolled it up and the final dimensions were about 8" tall and 38" long. There is no way the zipper teeth can puncture this thing in this configuration. I have a PVC/plastic/vinyl deck the vinyl railing as well. Hanging it over the deck seemed to work well for drying it. I know some guys use those indoor/outdoor snail blowers used for bouncers to dry their stuff out. I should probably invest in one of those too, to dry my toys out.

This will fit nicely in my front storage compartment. Ignore the boston valve next to it. that is for my 3 person hot dog which fits in my other storage compartment. This mat comes with a built in attached and removable boston valve. Inflates in less than 45 seconds with my hp airhead inflator which is also noisier than heck.


Anyone else care to share how they store this thing and dry it out?

Didn't know they connected with a zipper....assumed it was just tie them together.

jetboater4life said:

This mat comes with a built in attached and removable boston valve. Inflates in less than 45 seconds with my hp airhead inflator which is also noisier than heck.
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Anyone else care to share how they store this thing and dry it out?

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Are you still getting along well with this air pump? I've read some discussions on high-volume vs high-pressure pumps. Mostly sying high-volume fill faster than high-pressure. I usually fill our tube at the garage with my big compressor before heading out, but having something on the boat would greatly increase our flexibility. My big compressor takes FOREVER to fill my 3 person tube. Maybe 15-20 minutes it seems like. I keep thinking a small 12v pump would take even longer, but that could be the difference between pressure and volume.

Oh, and my actual point is that this airhead pump has 'high pressure' (not volume) in its name, so would it work any faster than what I'm used to?

BigAbe75 said:

Are you still getting along well with this air pump? I've read some discussions on high-volume vs high-pressure pumps. Mostly sying high-volume fill faster than high-pressure. I usually fill our tube at the garage with my big compressor before heading out, but having something on the boat would greatly increase our flexibility. My big compressor takes FOREVER to fill my 3 person tube. Maybe 15-20 minutes it seems like. I keep thinking a small 12v pump would take even longer, but that could be the difference between pressure and volume.

Oh, and my actual point is that this airhead pump has 'high pressure' (not volume) in its name, so would it work any faster than what I'm used to?

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I've since switched to the airpig by airhead. The main reason is due to the lower noise as I have not mounted my air pump under my engine cover... yet. The high pressure pump was fast as it took less than a minute to fill the whole gang plank. One thing to note is that when you fill the gang plank with the warm air coming out of the pump and then set the toy on the cold water you will loose some pressure inside of the toy due to the air molecules contracting due to lower temp. I don't think I ever had to refill with he high-pressure airhead pump because it got the toy nice and full. The air pig seems to fill just as fast but the psi is a little lower. It still gets the job done and only once or twice I've had to add a little more air because of what I just mentioned.

Here is a list comparing several pumps I've been looking at.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IxXeIZOaC6xE3QIpW5Z76jjZv9H1NL20PKTKc6rFFmg/edit?usp=sharing

"Side" question on the gang plank... where do they zip together? Long or short side or both? I would add to my order (they're $53 on Amazon right now!) if they could join on all sides.

spatty99 said:

"Side" question on the gang plank... where do they zip together? Long or short side or both? I would add to my order (they're $53 on Amazon right now!) if they could join on all sides.

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They can only zip on one side. I believe it is the 10 foot long side for the airhead gangplank. I bought the WOW air mat two years ago and it was a zip on short side so I couldn't effectively zip them together. With the airhead gangplank you will end up with a 12'x10' floating mat when they are zipped together. The wow mats zipped together will be 6'x20'. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

@jetboater4life You bring up a fear I live with every time we inflate our mat. Ours is 6 x 20 and I have concerns about a child going underneath, getting disoriented, get stuck and not be able to surface. A 12 x 10 would seem to have even more risk.

Thanks for the feedback. They are so cheap now, I might get extras because they can double as covers for the pool in the Florida "winter".

buckbuck said:

@jetboater4life You bring up a fear I live with every time we inflate our mat. Ours is 6 x 20 and I have concerns about a child going underneath, getting disoriented, get stuck and not be able to surface. A 12 x 10 would seem to have even more risk.

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The younger kids always wear their life jackets. I'll make sure to remind the older ones of that potential situation. We normally watch them pretty close or participate in the mat balancing fun.