Knowledge needed on composite boatbuilding

Hi all,

I am currently a sales engineer in supplying composite material for mostly industrial plant and oil and gas platform. However, I started to market the material into the shipping and boatbuilding industrial. It seem to me that composite material start to play an important role in boatbuilding. That why I was excited to come into this market.

However, I had so little knowledge in boatbuilding as well as how boat/ship can ultilize from composite/fiberglass material. Therefore, for anyone who may help, please advice what the first few step I should take to come into this industry. Any books or references for me to study? Please advise.

Thank you.

 

How flexible is this material? Thickness? and the most important question what is the material made of?

 

Start by going to Eric Greene s' site and downloading his book. Very nice of Mr. Greene to allow the use of his book for free. It will give you an understanding of where we are with composites in boat building.

www.marinecomposites.com

You will need a good printer to print it all.
Also try any of these books, particularly Robert Scotts book

http://boatdesign.net/Directory/Technical_Resources/Books_-_Boatbuilding/Composites/

 

Thank a lot for the information especially the books, was downloading now and printing it. Btw, where can i find a starter guide about boatbuilding and boat/ship structures, component and construction through the web?

Thank for the help

 

I would suggest for general info on the industry that you go to the Proffessional boatbuilder site and read the online mag every month. That is at:
www.proboat.com
Also you may be able to find on the web a copy of the old issues of proboat on disc. They offered it for a while but discontinued it. If you are serious, I would attend IBEX when it is on in our winter. Info available on the same above web site. It is a huge building densely packed with much info on the state of boatbuilding, pretty much world wide. You will find your self exhausted with trying to take it all in, in the 3 days allotted.
As to books, I can't think of a good all encompassing book out there. You will have to take in more than one to get the picture:

General structure- Dave Gerrs- Boat Strength- An old Skenes Elements of yacht design that has Hereshoffs and Nevins rules for skantlings.-and some of the books listed on the previous site I gave you.

The Gougeon Bros Web site has a bit about structure as does the SP systems site.
http://www.westsystem.com/
http://www.spsystems.com/
Those are only a start...they will lead to other stuff.