Boats, yachts, hulls more huls and propellers!

[monrosm@shrewsb]

Hi
I have been on this forum for quite a while now as i am a young and keen yacht designer, however this little ordeal is slightly different and is not directly related to design. I am doing an advanced Physics course at school for my final year in England, as part of the course I have to give a presentation on ... wait for it...'Materials', yay what fun. However when I leave school I intend to study yacht design at university and to one day be a yacht designer, so I thought 'How could I combine this project with what I want to do' So I enquired if I could do my presentation on 'Yachts', to which I got the reply 'Don’t you mean a boat'. Anyway after giving my physics teacher a brief lesson on the English language definition of a 'Yacht' he made the quite obvious remark that 'there are a lot of materials on a "yacht"' which is quite true. So I was wondering if any one could help me in suggesting some object that every boat has but varies in material from boat to boat. E.g. the hull some are wooden, others fibre glass, composites, and some military boats have steel or more likely titanium hulls. This is just an example though. I mean is there a variety in Propeller materials or some other feature on a boat.
Having said all this, it has to be something most people would have heard of and also something that has a plentiful source of information about, and also something interesting, I mean I know work is work but its just more fun to do something which actually interests you than something that doesn’t. Anyway, ANY help is much appreciated. . . Email me on stef99@hotmail.co.uk if you want your reply to be private. Thank you!