Plastic boats beware.

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by messabout, Jul 5, 2013.

  1. messabout
    Joined: Jan 2006
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    messabout Senior Member

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  2. CDK
    Joined: Aug 2007
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    CDK retired engineer

    Just saw a TV item about the many derelict boats littering the coast, so I consider the discovery of any plastic eating lifeforms excellent news.
    The next step to clean the coast of course must be glass fiber eating bacteria.
     
  3. tunnels

    tunnels Previous Member

    Oh no after all these years its true !!!!

    Polyestermites are coming to a shore near you !!:eek::confused::(:mad:;):eek:
     
  4. tom28571
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    tom28571 Senior Member

    Polyestermites were rampant in the early days of fiberglass boats but were kept at bay by gasses generated in osmotic blisters. With no blisters being developed on polyethlene water bottles in the ocean, I guess they are making a comeback.
     
  5. dskira

    dskira Previous Member

    I think it make sence. These little things need a boat, and they choose plastic raft. What's new :p
     
  6. thudpucker
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    thudpucker Senior Member

    where can I get some of those little darlings? I'll seed our local dump with them.
     
  7. Ike
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    Ike Senior Member

    So the old joke about polyestermites is no longer a joke!
     
  8. SamSam
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    SamSam Senior Member

    The humor is that nowhere in the article did it say that anything eats plastic.
     
  9. thudpucker
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    thudpucker Senior Member

    My grandson has an old Red Ryer BB gun hanging in my Barn.
    Bugs have eaten the plastic coloring off the Stock and Fore grip.
    They are coming for my Ranger Bass Boat next!
     
  10. messabout
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    messabout Senior Member

    Great sense of humor gentlemen.:D This old world can surely use more laughs and less strife.
     
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  11. CDK
    Joined: Aug 2007
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    CDK retired engineer

    We are having an invasion of predatory crickets here, approx. 2 inches long, both brown and green, equipped with saw-like jaws. They eat virtually anything, including Styrofoam, polyurethane, hair, rubber, textile and also hard shelled bugs and their own kind.

    I think it would take just a tiny gen modification to start them gnawing on polyester. They have no wings so there is no danger of uncontrollable spreading, also they do not swim.
     

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  12. daiquiri
    Joined: May 2004
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    daiquiri Engineering and Design

    Ok, but what happens after these bugs eat polyester? They decompose it into something useful or just fill their bodies with toxic stuff, die and spread the toxins to the rest of the food chain?? :confused:
     
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  13. CDK
    Joined: Aug 2007
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    CDK retired engineer

    Not a problem Slavi, they are cannibals, so they keep eating each other until there is just a single giant one left! How we recycle that one into something useful I don't know yet.

    We have a wintergarden (zimski vrt) with automatic doors and windows to control the temperature. After sunset there are dozens of these creatures inside, so I spray some insecticide. They are amazingly resilient, only direct hits kill them.
    Then in the morning there is a killing field left, mainly legs, some fluid and one or two complete corpses. And still they succeed in gnawing chunks from the central heating insulation.
     
  14. thudpucker
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    thudpucker Senior Member

    WOW, Just imagine what the last of them buggers will look like!
    Huge!
    And when his Bowell's start to work....."open them Doors quick, he's gonna ......!"
     
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  15. rxcomposite
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    rxcomposite Senior Member

    messabout,

    I opened the link in post number 1 and my computer warned me there is a script running in the link. Has anybody received also the warning?
     
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