steel hull vs other materials

[ted655]

Is steel still cheap? At the rate China is driving up it's price by creating a shortage, I wonder if it still pays to put up with it's other shortcomings.
This is NOT a critisism! I really don't know if a graph of Total costs of all boat building materials were drawn, WHERE would steel fall?
The graph should include shipping, storage, preps, consumables, labors, tools, treatments,handling & jiging costs AND anything else it takes to float a boat.
What material charts the lowest? That's ONE graph. Then we could compare all the materials to each other by maintainence, initial value, resale value, repair costs, insurance rates & projected lifespan.
THEN... we'd know the best material to use to displace water.
I'm sure there is not ONE material. A sailboat has different exspectations than a tug for example. We would then have different groups in which we could rate and match the materials in order to keep a level playing field.
Anyome know of such graphs or charts?

[ajflick]

Well thanks all for your comments..its been most illuminting (and at timr amusing)....just so you know, we do recognise that there's going to be maintenance whatever the material and to be honest this wasn't really the thing that concerned me when I put the original post up. My partner alsoready has quite a 'skew' if you like towards steel, because of the kind of sailing that we want to do, and I tend to concur...however as with anything there are pros and cons I did just want to check out some of the cons more thoroughly. Now I've heard a lot in response to weight but - and I may have missed something here - I can't see that the comment about low angle of recovery and being 'rolly' has been addressed....Perhaps it has and I didn't understand! perhaps the orignal comment re this was utter crap...but just so I'm clear it would helpful if someone might address that issue....

In addition I guess to the guy taking about starting with the type of vessel first..well in a sense we have done that AND we have also seen a particular steel yacht that may fit the bill..but we are both pretty clear I think that it needs to be between 42 and 50 ft - more around 45/46 ft and it can't also cost a million bucks...

thanks again

[alex fletcher]

By the size of the boat and the fact that your going cruising form Sydney probably to the reef or south pacific I feel Steel is a great option easy to repair and sail if bump something hard steels what you wont I own a 40 ft Roberts spray built in steel 35 years old and a 38 ft UFO we cruise in the spray and race in the UFO
and as Mike said if you have a High Meta-centric height it wont roll much in fact our steel boat rolls less the the glass one and is only a little slower but it steers much better in a following sea