Aluminum sailing yachts

[Patrick BLOSSE]

Hello,

Thank you in advance for sharing out your personnal opinion about the worldwide craftsmanship for aluminum hull sailing yachts designed for blue water cruising in the range from 35 to 45 footers.

In other words: which are best designed, best constructed and most seaworthiness and why, according to you ?

As initial contribution: In France, there are only about 10 shipyards, aboveall turned towards centerboarders, often hard-chined.
In that way, medium-heavy displacements round bilged sailing yachts are pretty missing and I should be interested to hear of some shipyards thus specialized, worldwide.

Fair winds to all.

Kindly.

Patrick.

[Guillermo]

I think aluminium is pretty useful to get light, chined hulls. That's why is mostly used that way.
Anyhow there are several designers and boatbuilders using aluminium for rounded hulls, as Graham Radford or Greg Brown, i.e.
Just search internet for "aluminium yachts" and you'll find a wealthy of them.
Cheers.

[Patrick BLOSSE]

Thank you Guillermo.
My knowledge is now starting to improve in this field.

As trigger, I remember pretty "seaworthy looking" designs in the North Sea area, during a family summer sailing a few years ago, but I remain in the search for the datas and discussions about such medium displacement round bilged hulls, and about any similar worldwide.

Steel is not to be excluded from my interest in this way.

Fair winds to you and to all.

Patrick.

[Crag Cay]

There are lots of good round bildge aluminium yachts around. In Europe, Van de Stadt designs are very good.

www.stadtdesign.com

They will have the best idea of boat yards that have done a good job of building their designs in the past.

www.kanteryachts.com - Across the Atlantic, Kanter Yachts have an excellent reputation for yachts of about 15m and larger. They have built design from many archetects including Chuck Paine. With the dollar so weak, having a boat built in Canada may be attractive at the moment, although never underestimate the benefits of having a boat built close to where you live as a considerable amount of 'liasson' is often necessary.

Van de Stadt 47:

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/att...1&d=1174594882

[Patrick BLOSSE]

Thank you Crag.

I can't find much information about HUTTING yachts at the moment.

Can any of you recommend some worthy Internet threads ?

Kindly.

Patrick.

[LAZYJACK]

Patrick

Check out
http://www.hutting.nl/

You might also like Dick Koopmans designs or Dick Zaal
http://www.dickkoopmans.nl/
http://www.dickzaalyachtdesign.nl/

Greetings
Phil

[Eric Sponberg]

My Globetrotter 45 design can be configured for aluminum construction. The link to it is:

http://www.sponbergyachtdesign.com/Globetrotter45.htm

I have also had some good experiences with Custom Steel Boats in Merritt, North Carolina, who built my round-bottom Moloka'i Strait motoryachts, the MS 65 and the MS 72/75. They could certainly do a round-bottom aluminum sailboat. Their link is:

http://www.customsteelboats.com/

Another yard that I am dealing with at the moment is Newcastle Marine in Palm Coast, Florida, just a half hour drive south of me. They are building a round-bottom steel 164' motoryacht and a 112' aluminum yacht (don't know if this is hard chine or round bottom). I am working with another designer to have a 79' aluminum power catamaran built there, and it will be mostly flat plate and single-curvature plate, with a few compound curvature plates, but they could certainly do a round bottom. The link to them is:

http://www.newcastlemarineinc.com/

The trouble here in the United States is that we do not have very many yacht builders in metal. We have very many metal shipyards here that build commercial vessels, and they don't want anything to do with building yachts--the owners are way too fussy.

Also, here in the US, the skill required to build a round-bottom boat in metal is a dying art. The word I get is that even with NC cutting of frames and plates, it still takes more labor time to fit and trim the compound-curvature plates than it takes for a multi-chine hullform with only single-curvature plates, and this makes the boat more expensive. So to build a round bottom design, the owner has to be convinced that extra money is worthwhile.

Regards,

Eric

[Patrick BLOSSE]

Hello,

Thank you for your contributions and usefull threads.

I'm now bouncing to go about my worldwide glance and enlarging my local point of view.

Fair winds to all.

Patrick