At 4.3 metres in length by 1.7 metres across her beam, you might want to call the Ally-Gator 430 cute. But make no mistake, this is a gutsy craft, which, although aluminium by construction, is anything but ordinary by design when it comes to this type of boat. There have been aluminium boats in the past; the first few on the market were, let’s be honest, duds, and they turned people off of opting to go this durable route.
Over the years they have gotten better, such as with the introduction of the Swedish-made Linder boats, but the imported quality is costly – and still, the boat you get does the job while the accessories and dressing it up to suit your style of boating makes it more attractive; but at the end of the day, it’s still a ‘tinny’ at heart. The Ally-Gator is different from all other aluminium boats as it’s not designed to be a floating bathtub – instead you get a modern design with an emphasis on function, all wrapped up in a durable construction.
Deck Layout
Generally speaking, aluminium boats available today are designed as a simple and straight-forward hull. It would appear that only then, thought gets given to how to make it flashy. And once that’s been taken care of, least important seems to be storage and functionality. But, it looks as if the style of thinking has been reversed when it comes to the Ally-Gator 430 with the main priority being her form, and actually being user-friendly. Aluminium boats offer unique safety in that they are more durable than their fibreglass counterparts
These are the boats that are mainly sent into Africa to conquer the toughest of rivers as they can take quite a beating before letting you down. And certainly, the ‘ali’ boats before have all offered a type of safety which allows them to take a few knocks and bruises. Looking at the Ally-Gator, you get a 4.5 millimetre tread plate deck, with a three millimetre hull and added boxtype strengtheners along the gunnels. In comparison to many other aluminium boats, that’s about the difference between Pierre Spies and Gio Aplon!
