sun-stretched and overinflated

[heaviest]

Lots of hot days. Cheap inflatables get sun-stretched when they are warm and you put a lot of weight on them. Heck, I've seen the pillow of cheap one-chamber air mattresses bulge when normal size people use them. Love it. But I saw a 350-ish pound guy try to use one of those things, sink it, add air to it, and then float on it with the pillow bulging. When he was done with it I added still more air, and people continued to use it, apparently unconcerned about the bulging pillow. 350-pound guy eventually got on it again and popped it. He thought it was a hoot. He's been on a two-person float with his wife of about the same size, and neither is self-conscious about overloading inflatables. But she was nowhere to be found this time.

I saw a woman get on top of a guy on one of those slim airmats that I had overinflated. They were so good at it that I'm sure they've done it before. The pillow bulged on that raft, too. Between the two of them they weighed less than that other guy, but it was still great to see.

The heaviest person I saw floating on those things was my partner at 440 pounds. They're only good to about 200 pounds, and over 300 you're pretty much just floating in the water with some tubes under you. Overinflating it helps only a bit. Balancing on an inflatable you've sunk is kinda fun. She didn't manage to pop it, but by the looks she got people were expecting it to pop.

She and I both sank some 36 inch swim rings. 350 pound guy kinda managed to float on one. I saw two women try to balance on one of these. I wish they had the patience to keep trying. None of the rings popped in the pool, but we did find one deflated outside the pool. My partner says she didn't do it LOL.

[PBK]

Re: sun-stretched and overinflated

Craziest thing I saw was in the Texas heat one of those cheap, orange and black Intex Explorer 200 dinghies/boats was sitting upside down in the sun on the pool deck of the apartment I stay in with the black part facing up. At the bow (front) of the boat it has a bulge or enlargement that makes up the shape of the boat.
Well, the air pressure inside of the boat in combination with the softening black vinyl caused the front to expand and inflate like a balloon! The boat looked like it was pregnant and was horribly lopsided. I wanted to see who owned it and buy it because I actually found it to be kind of a turn on.
Anyway, when I made it down there the boat was popped and thrown in the trash dumpster. Too bad. I tried replicating it at my house but the Alberta sun on a hot day in the summer can't quite match the Texas sun.

Another time I was on a beach in Florida and a black Intex orca that had been sitting in the sun and not used the whole day by its owner grew to enormous proportions just from sitting in the sun.

[Big Thud Joe]

Re: sun-stretched and overinflated

Oh, don't get me started on sun stretching. Once at an auntes place in the Sydney summer sun, sitting on a large 72 inch inner tube in their pool, from a large truck / laurie tyre. I was comfortably laying on it one day in their pool (I was about 80k at the time) laying there, laying there, laying there for 20 minutes,, then the entire thing exploded under my body, with shards going everywhere. And the sound, the bang, ug FFS, my ears were ringing for hours. Sun stretching is not for me.

[MegaInflator]

Re: sun-stretched and overinflated

Sun stretching is safe with pvc inflatables; they tend to fail pretty benign (usually seam failure or a baffle will rip right next to a weld) due to low internal pressure.

Inner tubes are fairly high pressure by combination and yeah, they can get pretty wild.
But they also have WAY more "stretch potential" than PVC ....