An HDPE Boat Design with a full showcase of the design in the link

A company out in Wyoming is building some pretty awesome boat designs focusing on strength and modularity.

https://legacyhdpe.com/hdpe-boats/work-boats/23-ember/


Has anyone here had experience in what the process is like repairing HDPE boat hull damage?

 

I've broke some hdpe, know it can be repaired but haven't done the welding myself. Be interesting if it can be proven a standalone rigid enough hull.

 

what a pity ,HDPE composites can hardly be repaired like initial performance. Evenly CF has not make it into the mainstream. Forget about it

 

You should check out these guys:
Tideman Boats BV | Indestructible HDPE Workboats https://tidemanboats.com/

 

That is an interesting website. Love the idea, not 100% sure that I agree with their assertions. Our boats end up clad in it for skiff guards and bash guards, my boats probably got a half dozen full sheets in various shapes and areas. It's only 4 years and had sun intensity around the 60th and it's already starting to sun fade compared to new. It also expands and contracts like wild, and isn't exactly the most rigid of materials.

Having drug uhmw and hdpe sleds across the snow and ice as well as smacked sheets with all manner of fishing equipment it certain can wear and crack, and old stuff seems very difficult to repair.

Hope they pull it off, could see it working in certain situations but don't think it's going to be a panacea to replace current materials.

 

Here is another manufacturer in Tasmania Sentinel Boats https://sentinelboats.au/

 

Plenty of small sailboats and windsurfers have been made from polyethylene.





There's been literally hundreds of thousands of PE boards and sailboats built, as well as vast numbers of dinghies. I've never had to repair one because in decades of using PE windsurfers I've never broken one. I've seen plenty of ugly repairs but this vid shows what seems to be a fairly good repair ;

PE is always heavier and flexier than GRP but it's incredibly tough and personally I really like having some simple, tough toys as well as complex, high performance ones. I was talking to someone in the industry recently who said that the PE training dinghies for kids are so tough that it is having a bad effect on the fibreglass boats that kids move into later - neither parents or the kids could understand that GRP cannot be treated as roughly as PE without suffering damage and therefore the GRP boats are getting damaged more often.