We love Ferro cement but beware !

Steve I have given you the reasons for the 'cause of ( my ) discomfort with ferro.'

If you don`t think they are valid , that is your right.

If you think they are ' endless bs ' so be it ,......... I don`t.

I would not ever claim to be an expert on ferro.That does not , in my view , mean I cannot see some of it`s shortcomings.
All posts here on these forums are nothing more than the poster`s opinion.Expert or not , you could probably find examples to disprove ANY claim made by anyone , even when it may be a single isolated case.

So would you build in steel then ?

I don`t doubt that you could build a sound , solid GOOD ferro boat for me Steve ,
I would not be apprehensive if I got one from someone like you.
But I could never be as sure I could buy a used one that good. I just would not know.It would bother me.
There are too many ferro 'dodgy dogs' out there to support that concern.

It`s yet another reason I would not build in ferro;
Rebar and mesh ....I would not even like working with the stuff .
There are easier much better ways to build a boat .....for me.

The best reason of all Steve : I LIKE WOOD !

You could never build a boat for me that would be as nice in ferro.
That lovely Hartley Tahitian Steve....one in ferro and the other in wood.......which one would you choose ......for me its a 'no brainer.'

 

BF,yes i would build a steel boat,i agree with those who believe it is the toughest material for a cruising boat however like you my prefered material is wood,strip planked wood/epoxy/glass composite in particular,i have built numerous boats this way as well as cold molded,C-flex, foam core,and other methods so i know what i like,hell id like to build a large plywood boat,so yes i think the Hartley motorsailers would be great in classic heavy strip plank construction. I would not build in Ferro today but i also would not build a solid glass hull with mat/roving/polyester or a carvel planked wood hull,no good reason to build in any of those methods these days,weve moved on,i would have no qualms however owning a boat built by any of those method if i got a good enough deal on it.
Steve.

 

The truth about ferro...

Hoho funny to see the ferro debate rearing its head AGAIN... Here's the big news sportsfans...there are well built ferro boats and badly built ferro boats, in the same way that there are well built wood, steel and GRP boats and badly built ones. Unlike most of the 'commentators' here, I have actually owned and sailed in boats of all of these materials. I currently have a cold-moulded racing dinghy, a clinker built sailing dinghy, and a 33 foot ferro beauty which everyone always thinks is wood, or fibreglass (see the shine...). Thing is, the ferro boat is a good one, and we have lovingly brought her back from a place that most wooden boats could never have survived.

People bang on about the mesh, but what they don't realise is that mesh, by its nature, spreads loads effectively through a number of layers over a large area. If your mesh was really nasty (ours was found to be in excellent condition by a surveyor after the boat hit a rock a few years ago that would have destroyed a GRP boat) you would see the hull bending on its jackstands etc (high point loading) long before there would be enough loading from sea state (over a larger area) to cause much damage. Rust is also, AFAIAW, oxidation. If your hull was porous enough to be letting air through the concrete, I think you'd have other things to worry about. As it is, most boats are coated these days with an epoxy barrier coat, through which moisture will travel in a negligible manner.

Ferro boats are very labour intensive to build, and the resale value is not great for many (but not all) boats, especially the home-built ones (is this all that different from many other home-built boats?). But you get a lot of boat for your bucks. Yes they are as heavy as a traditionally built wooden boat of moderate to heavy displacement, but they are very comfortable in a seaway (assuming the design is good too, a big 'if'). We saw 40 knots of wind on the Clyde this year under full sail (reaching) and kept pace with a friend's Bowman 40 (the Chuck Paine one), so in certain conditions they are not exactly slow either. Mind you, the boat is quite beamy so again hull form has as much to do with this as displacment. The boat is much stiffer than a traditionally built wooden boat, and certainly more so than the much lighter Sigma 38's I used to race on.

The keel is integral with the hull construction, so no more worries about keel bolts or heavy groundings. She is also a very quiet boat, as concrete is a good insulator of sound. To be honest, my least favourite material at the moment has to be GRP...I have seen many instances of poor laminate consolidation, incorrect curing procedures etc. leading to unsightly gelcoat crazing and cracking of the laminate (one friend's Achilles 24 built in the 70's had a large crack appear down the centreline this year for no apparent reason, and you only need to look at the spate of keel, rudder and hull failures in recent years to see what happens when boats are badly specced and built in GRP). I've also heard of numerous stories of steel boats collapsing due to poor welding fracturing, and wooden boats popping seams and sinking. I love my cold moulded dinghy, but suspect there are probably voids between the plies. You need to get the plaster mix correct and the curing conditions correct, but thats the same for GRP (only its the resin mix and wet-out in that case).

Ferro repairs can be done by anyone with reasonable plastering skills, although there are a couple of tricks which need to be learned. Just because someone can do a bit of joinery around the house doesn't mean that they can build a boat, by the same token...

Any boat needs to be well built understanding the limitiations of the materials used, and well maintained during its service life afterwards. This applies to GRP, wood, steel, aluminium, and Ferro of course. The ferro boats I've heard about that sank were usually to do with seacocks and skin fittings...wait a minute, thats the same as any other material. So where does that leave us? If a ferro boat does sink, it is usually salvageable in situations where other boats would have disintegrated.

As it is, I like my floating holiday cottage. She enhances our Scottish scenery and has provided a means to comfortably crawl my way around the West Coast pubs with my mates, who incidentally all had a great time pitching in working on the boat this last winter. My next boat will be a strip plank cedar/carbon fibre racing dinghy, which my mates will also be involved with. Horses for courses.

 

Wood ( dead vegitation) is the flimsyist, most complex, most labour intensive material ever used in boatbuilding and has the most liabilities of any material. It is the most piss poor material ever used to build a boat, period. It was only used because it was the only option, given the technolgy of it's time. As old sealing Schooner designer Frank Ferdett told me once "It doesn't make any sense to build a boat out of wood anymore, now that so much better materials are available."
It makes as much sense as using a red river cart to go grocery shopping ,or travel across the country in ,today.
For all it's flaws, ferro cement is a far better cruising boat material than wood ever was.
A person with a lifetime of wood or ferro building experience and no steel experience could still build a far better boat out of steel, with far less trouble than ferro, and light years less trouble than wood, and far less expensive

 

OK I`m outta here....

 

Me too.

 

Thats a bit harsh, no? My cherub (and potential new FD) could never be built down to 50kg hull weight in steel...wood is far superior to most materials when you factor in weight, fatigue resistance etc., especially below a certain size and displacement. Small steel boats cannot compete with wood on weight, especially wood epoxy, and wood has much better insulation qualities than steel (or GRP etc for that matter). Wood also looks way nicer than steel, which is important to some people (more maintenance for clear coating, but then look at the mast in my pics above...its about pride). Its also difficult to build a boat the shape of mine out of steel and get it fair without serious experience and mechanical plate forming equipment. I know there are radius chine boats etc out there, but I can always tell the difference. Wood flows around such curves a good deal (though not totally) more easily. It all depends what you want the design to do, and where your aesthetic priorities lie. For a boat the size of a large schooner, then yes Steel is a good choice. If I wanted to go to Antartica I would build a steel boat, either radius chine, multi chine or possibly origami, as form would be of secondary consideration to function (although there are some nice looking boats out there with chines etc., I like the way they really accentuate the lines sometimes). As I said before, Horses for courses.

 

Brent I respect the fact you don't like wood, but don't patronize us about a material you know nothing about.
Obviously you had very little experience to say something as far off the truth.
As for your the quote of Ferdett, you report it.
You mention you are boat designer and boat builder, let me say that you should try a little harder to see the big picture of both.
To make it clear, I design and built for all sort of material, but I will never dare to say a definitve opinion about one of them.
By the way, knowing the trees will be a good start for you. They are more interresting of what you think. Try, you will be surprise.
I wish you and your family a happy thanksgiving,
Cheers
Daniel

 

Brent,if you are talking about old school wood boat construction where you have hundreds of individual components screwed or nailed together relying on the wood swelling to keep the water out i have to agree with you 100% but you could not be further off base if you are talking about modern wood/epoxy/glass boats,i think Andy pretty much said what i was going to say better than i would have so have a happy thanksgiving.
Steve.

 

Beside the fact that some have hundred years and still sailing.
Beside that a lot of hard work fishing boat built carvel fashion still working after 70 years.
Beside the fact that some meters class without any refections still competing after 50 years
So please, look closely. All exemple above are for carvel fashion.
As for the hundred parts screwed together, this as nothing to do with good construction. I saw plastic boat with one part failing and they sink. (the keel attachment)
And glass epoxy do not save the wooden boat, not even make them better, it make them easier to built and ask for less skilled force.
Happy Thanksgiving
Daniel

 

Shall we meet in a pub?
Blockhouse style preferred......

 

A friend described old wooden boats well, when he said it's like that old saying "This is the same axe my great great grandfather used. Since then it has had six new heads and ten new handles.
Keeping an old boat like that floating takes far more work than it would take to built it many times over.
I remember talking to Flash, who charters his steel 50 footer in the Charlottes . He said the tourists walk right by his boat ,without looking, to do a beeline to the wooden Maple Leaf. I told him that when the Maple Leaf finishes her season they have full time work till next spring just to get her ready, whereras he has the rest of the year for playtime. As a far larger portion of their earning goes into maintenance, he could charge half of what they charge and still be further ahead , money wise, in dollars per hour worked .
Cold moulded is a huge improvement on wooden boat construction, the only logical way to build a wooden boat. I've seen them nearly 100 yeats old. Its still very expensive and labour intensive , with no real advantage over more modern materials when you are done. In wooden boats, the project of building one is an end in itself, not justifiable as a means to an end.

 

I'm not sure whether you're really that ignorant of the characteristics of wood, Brent, or whether you're just in a bit of a trolling mood.

I'm not a professional boat builder or designer. But I come from a long line of woodworkers and carpenters. I've spent a lifetime building everything from furniture to houses to trebuchets out of wood (and yes, a couple of boats too). And it's a marvelous material.

You can build complex shapes out of it, that no one in his right mind would want to replicate in steel. You can build simple but strong shapes out of it, that would leave GRP sagging and limp with no complex curves for rigidity and strength. You can build light shapes out of it, that would be thick and heavy if built from ferro-cement.

It has positive features ranging from natural bouyancy to fire and heat resistance. My 40 year old Architectural Drafting textbook has a picture of a commercial building after a fire. It had been built with steel I-beam joists supported by wood beams. The wooden beams in the picture are still intact, because they charred slowly from the outside in and maintained structural integrity. The steel I-beams are draped over them like spaghetti, because they got hot through and through and failed.

Wood is mostly non-toxic, mostly easy on tools, mostly affordable. It naturally takes a fair curve, instead of having to be held to one. It's easy on a work schedule, too. You can walk away from a plank half-cut or a plywood panel half-fastened, and take lunch....or come back tomorrow or next week. Try that with some of the other materials.

Although they can't compete with a professional in some ways, particularly in speed, conscientious amateurs can build almost anything out of wood if they put their minds to it. They can work at their own pace; they can work alone if they want to or if need be.

Strangely enough, you single out cold-moulded as 'the only logical way to build a wooden boat.' What's so logical about choosing a method that--as you then go on to say--'is very expensive and labour-intensive,' and has 'no real advantage over modern materials when you are done'?

I'm preparing to build a 30' sharpie out of plywood and stick lumber, as a protected and inland water cruiser. You may turn up your nose at both my choice of boats and my choice of materials, but think about this: I can build it a piece at a time at my own speed and according to my budget, with no specialized tools beyond those I already own as a carpenter and woodworker. I can build it for a fraction of the cost of trying to do a one-off steel, ferro-cement or GRP boat, and in a fraction of the time. And I have no doubt that if kept painted, and covered when it's out of the water, it will outlast me (and maybe my children)here in the dry climate I call home.

Sounds pretty logical to me, Brent. I see no point in trying to cold-mould it, or build it out of any non-wood material.

You can't really make sweeping generalizations about the 'best' or 'worst' boatbuilding material, any more than you can make sweeping claims about the best or worst boat designs. Which material or design is the best or worst depends on what size and kind of boat is being built, where it's going to be used, how it's going to be used, who's building it, and a host of other issues.

 

Daniel, you are of course correct,there are many examples of carvel planked boats that are very long lived,im not knocking them,i just dont see it as a viable method of building a wood boat TODAY.Wood is a fabulous engineering material and that is greatly enhanced by the use of modern adhesives,sheathings and coatings.Using modern methods,and i would include sheet plywood chine boats here,allows for much stronger lighter structures that are for all intents and purposes one piece,just like boats built of the other modern methods such as welded metal,fiberglass and Ferro cement.Years ago they used to rivet the plating on metal boats until someone decided to take a risk and fully weld one,a realativly small change that resulted in a huge improvment,im sure the armchair experts back then had a whole lot of theories about why it wouldnt work just like they still do about Ferro but it greatly improved the method,nobody these days builds a rivetted hull,it has been superseded by better methods.While yes,you have pointed out all the old carvel fishing boats out there still going strong and its true,i love some of those old boats and i wouldnt rule out owning a loverly old north pacific troller but to build one new makes no sense,i very much doubt if any new carvel commercial fishing boats are going into service.Do you honestly think any of the truly inovative designers of our past such as Nat Herreschoff would be designing for carvel if he were around today? of course not. I am right now repairing a Jim Brown Searunner 25 Trimaran which dragged its mooring a month ago and was washed into some commercial docks doing damage mostlt to the port Ama,now this is a light built plywood boat that was launched in 1980 so its 28yrs old.It is glued together with epoxy,has no chine log,instead they are glass taped inside and out,apart from that it is not fiberglass sheathed but is epoxy sealed,epoxy primed and painted with 2 part paint,apart from the damage it has NO structural issues at all,nada.it is beutifuly built and finished and is in better condition than most glass boats of similar vintage we get in the shop,plywood was a huge improvement to wood.Cold molded wood was a wonderful method too in its day and is the method in vogue when i was an apprentice and we built many boats in double diagonal or 3 skin construction but this method has also been superseded by cedar strip composite construction,very few if any cold molded boats are built anymore.The only reason to build a carvel planked (or cold molded or rivetted metal or Ferro cement) boat in this day and age is because YOU want to and i guess that is a fair enough reason.
Steve.

 

Hi Steve

According to the article, (you may have other information) , but the article claims the second boat in ferro was Lighter.

I guess that is totally possible, but it must mean the orginal was very sturdily built