Editing Inflatable boat (section)

===Post-war inflatables===
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[[File:Inflatable boat-002.jpg|thumb|A modern [[Hypalon]] inflatable boat with rigid wooden floorboards, a transom and an inflatable keel, powered by a 12 volt electric [[trolling motor]].]]
Inflatable [[Lifeboat (shipboard)|liferaft]]s were also used successfully to save crews of aircraft that ditched in the sea; bombing, naval and anti-submarine aircraft flying long distances over water being much more common from the start of WWII. In the 1950s, the French Navy officer and biologist [[Alain Bombard]] was the first to combine the outboard engine, a rigid floor and a boat shaped inflatable. The former [[airplane]]-manufacturer [[Zodiac Group|Zodiac]] built that boat and a friend of Bombard, the diver [[Jacques-Yves Cousteau]] began to use it, after Bombard sailed across the Atlantic Ocean with his inflatable in 1952. Cousteau was convinced by the shallow draught and good performance of this type of boat and used it as tenders on his expeditions.

The inflatable boat was so successful that Zodiac lacked the manufacturing capacity to satisfy demand. In the early 1960s, Zodiac licensed production to a dozen companies in other countries. In the 1960s, the British company Humber was the first to build Zodiac brand inflatable boats in the United Kingdom.

Some inflatables have inflated [[keel]]s whose V-shape help the hull move through waves reducing the slamming effect caused by the flat hull landing back on the water surface after passing over the top of a wave at speed.