Steel yacht construction

[SeaSpark]

From sailing anarchy:

I was told that he got hit, and rolled, by a freighter. The dent is from the bow bulb.

http://www.sailinganarchy.com/forums...howtopic=65740

Belated happy new year all.

[Brent Swain]

This explains the huge increase in steel boats out cruising. If more people realised the toughness of steel construction there would be far fewer non metal boats out cruising. Moitessier put a similar picture of a sister ship to his Joshua in a 1984 iissue of Yachting magazine, which had been T-boned by a 35,000 ton freighter . It wasn't leaking a drop. I later heard that the boat sailed to Tahiti , where repairs were too expensive. They then sailed the boat to New Zealand before doing any kind of repairs, forcing the huge dent out of the toside.Whenever I hear people worrying about floating containers, ships , whales, etc, I can't help thinking "Simple solution,Go steel and forget about them."If the Sleavins,who were mostly wiped out by a collision with a freighter off the north end of New Zealand,had been in a steel hull they would probably all still be alive. Ditto with many people lost at sea. I wouldn't consider going to sea in a non metal boat. I have collided with a large metal object about 1000 miles north of Hawaii, that would have easily sunk me if my boat hadn't been steel.
Repairs on the boat in the picture would probably be , remove internal bent framing, spring back the plating that you can, replace the bent stuff, bend it and tack it in place,fully weld the edges, then replace the internal structural .
Brent

[rwatson]

One of the comments on that thread was along the lines of "if that boat had been aluminium or fibreglass, it would have got out of the way quickly"
As it turns out, both the owner and the watch were asleep, so extra speed was of no use, - so yes, steel saved their lives.
I have to agree with Brent about steel for cruising. I would rather lose a couple of days on a passage than the rest of my life.

[Trevlyns]

… can detect some serious disruption to the laminar flow there…

[Brent Swain]

I doubt if an extra knot or two would make much difference in any circumstane.
Brent

[westlawn5554X]

yes... I too also agreed that steel is cheaper and easier to be a boat building material and the fact you can find it almost every modern repair dock , take less time to repair and the strength is not doubt... I prefer its resistence from shallow coral tear...

[jeff spinney]

what about electrolasis,seems like it's a lot of trouble with motor boats.is it not a big deal in sailing boats as much,and general painting too,the sail boat pictured dosn't look to be rusted at all,do they use really good paint or does it just take allot of work.just wondering.

[westlawn5554X]

yeah... you need good clean sandblasting and marine paint professional...

you can drive your boat to river to kill the barnicles and sail back to sea...

there are plenty of expert already know how to deal with the electronlysis problem... anyway steel boat provide good grounding for your radio antenna...

[jeff spinney]

yea your right and i love the radio i also love the idea of a bullet proof boat,but the main reason most people around here have fiberglass is because the ease of taking care of them,BTW i'm talking about small commercial fishing boats,maybe we should consider steel again though if it can be covered with something that will stay,

[timgoz]

Nils Lucander said of his steel "Sea Going 29" sail aux., "if you hit a semi-submerged shipping container, sink it, not your boat". Moisser's (I think) Joshua was in a hurricane and driven into many other moored & anchored boats. His steel vessel crushed many wood & glass boats. Though Joshua needed refloated, she was put back into operating condition.

I've been to the unihabited coast of Northern Labrador by boat. I want to go back myself. I would not consider anything but a steel hulled boat for such an endevour. When rescue services are hundreds of miles away & charts are inaccurate, steel is the way to go, especially when 'Summer' water temps are in the mid 30'sF.

With good shot blasting preperation, proper initial design, and top grade marine paint formulated for steel, a steel boat will outlive the owner, provided proper maintnaince is adhered to.

Take care.

Tim

[westlawn5554X]

Material come and goes but marine steel for boat stays...

I love wooden boat for its warn and other quality too long to explained here... but I would lean back onto a steel boat for my major operation for business and venture... better on the insurance anyway...

Cheers

[Wynand N]

and steel boats need not to be heavy...
Over 40ft LOA, a modern well designed hull compares favorably with a tupperware boat and with a proper thought out radius chine, also scores top marks aesthetically on looks.

[jeff spinney]

i wish they could make windows out of steel too

[Ulf]

Steel is nice but consider this:
A one square metre plate of 5 mm steel weighs about 39 kg that’s equivalent of 24 mm of fibreglass or a fibreglass sandwich with 9 mm shells and a 10 cm core of divynicell H100. The last example would also give a positive buoyancy of bout 80 kg per square metre of hull.
Of course the steel hull would need frames and stiffeners so it would still be heavier than the other two.

[jeff spinney]

yea but it would be quite expensive,like about almost double(no real price checking done)