Barge Out of Concrete?

[Wynand N]

and then again there are many ferro-cement sailing boats out there sailing the seven seas Same design principles apply...

BTW, ever thought that the cement canoes may have positive buoyancy added as is the case with majority fibreglass canoes.

[safewalrus]

[quote=MikeJohns;116451]Sounds a bit conciliatory for you Mike.
/QUOTE]

Yeah, probably my age Mike - they say you go a bit funny after you reach 21! And I passed that a few weeks ago!

[marshmat]

Concrete canoes tip all the time; it's NOT THE SAME CONCRETE you see in buildings! With a specific gravity around 1, sometimes even a hair below that, concrete canoes don't sink nearly as easily as the name implies. These aren't ferrocement, they use much more sophisticated materials than that.
Ferrocement is a perfectly good way of doing a boat.... but it's also an easy way to screw up a boat. Depends on the design and what it'll be used for.

[MikeJohns]

Originally Posted by safewalrus

Yeah, probably my age Mike - they say you go a bit funny after you reach 21! And I passed that a few weeks ago!

That's after you reach 21 the fourth time ...
Then we need to go and look for the East-pole in a badly built very old poorly maintained ferro .
Chap here did just that, His kids tried to stop him on the basis he must be nuts but the courts threw it out and off he sailed. I haven't heard anything about it since so can't say how he fared.

Cheers

[CDBarry]

There is a great deal of good data on ferro cement on this site. The Navy FC manual was PDFed and put up here, and it has hours and so on.

The issue is mainly that FC is fairly labor intense compared to steel.

[Kay9]

I owned a ferro cement Tahitti ketch for 6 years. I loved that boat and you just couldnt hurt her. Took a hurricane to get her to hull speed though.

Cement gets harder over time, also it gets brittler ( is that a word?), however if you have reinforced correctly you should have no problems there. Maintance is 0 except for anti-fouling and standard anti-fouling paint works just fine.

On the negative side, I own a construction company in the US and cement has gone through the roof. The chinese are buing the world supply right now to finish the 3 gorges dam. I have been paying $110 a cubic yard for standard construction grade. So you might want to check your costs.

[jkittel]

A new type of fiber-reinforced bendable concrete will be used for the first time in Michigan this summer- and University of Michigan scientists hope that their new material will find widespread use across the country.
The new concrete looks like regular concrete, but is 500 times more resistant to cracking and 40 percent lighter in weight. Tiny fibers that comprise about 2 percent of the mixture's volume partly account for its performance. Also, the materials in the concrete itself are designed for maximum flexibility. Because of its long life, the Engineered Cement Composites (ECC) are expected to cost less in the long run, as well.

http://www.physorg.com/news3985.html


I wonder if fiber-reinforced bendable concrete might make concrete boats and ships more popular?