ferrocement

phanakapan

phanakapan

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Thinking of going to view a ferrocement boat- I know, must be mad, resale value poor, ok-ish unless you end up with a shoddy homebuild etc etc.

But is there a way of telling if the hull is dodgy to the naked eye- i.e will I be able to tell at a glance or without poking about too much in the owners pride and joy?

If it does look good enough to get a proper surveyor in, would any surveyor do, or are there ferro specialists?
 
Can't help with a surveyor, but should you get to the purchase stage, Yachtmaster Insurance (01394 615755) are one insurer who are quite happy to consider insuring Ferro boats.
 
If the hull was not professionally built the recommend is not to touch it - If it was built professionally the purchase price should reflect the poor re-sale capability and thus be a good option.
 
I have looked at a number of ferro boats. If the boat has been recently painted it is difficult to spot any problems. If you PM me details of the boat I will tell you if I have seen it or know anything about it. (I am not looking to buy at the moment so I do not have a possible conflict of interest).

I have just purchased Colin Brookes "Ferro-cement Boats" and it does list some of the"Noteworthy" builders and also the "Noteworthy" designers. You definately need a Ferro specialist surveyor. I would use Martin Evans who is based near Walton on the Naze. He has a ferro replica Thames barge so he does have first hand experience of ferro.
Paul
 
You are not mad! Look at my ferro! Decided to actually go for ferro, not because of budget, but because of good things I'd heard beyond the usual yada yada yada.
Please, come and take a look at my boat on the blog, she's a beauty. Sailed her this summer across Sea of Cortez. Solid, moves like a bird[not a racer but she does glide with very little wind] and well, don't believe all the crap.
If the ferro you are looking at feels right, go for it.
My boat is a Herreschoff and was built in shipyard in Canada. One of 7. Nice and classic. 25 years old.
Didn't bother with survey. Hard to survey a ferro hull but you can tell a lot just from looking at it. My hull smooth and obviously not an amatuer job. Good luck.
 
Things to look for before committing to a surveyor:

Sight along the hull and look for major unevenness, cracks, rust weeps which don't originate from fittings. If you see a pattern of chicken wire anywhere on the hull surface, run away, don't walk!

look anywhere inside where you can see the inside of the hull - lockers, bilges etc for signs of poor workmanship and cement cracking away from the armature (the reinforcing wire mesh).
 
The older the hull is the better cured it is. Any documentation you can get regarding the history of the build is a bonus. Our boat was laid up in the late 70's and the builder had a survey done of the armature prior to having a professional plastering team come in. So we have lots of pictures of the armature to gauge workmanship, although the fact that he had it surveyed says a lot about his attention to detail and willingness to have his work critiqued.

Stay away from wavey hulls, there's no excuse for it. If you can get info on the mix that is also helpfull.

Ensure that the rig and systems are of good quality. Ferro construction allowed for large hulls to built for cheap. Many builders were just as frugal with all other components of the boat, creating a stigma that all ferro boat owners must carry.
 
Following a discussion with a non ferro surveyor, but otherwise extremely qualified for other materials he told me the following. This his his story any way.

He will not survey a ferro boat because there is absolutely no way what so ever of determining the structural integrity of a ferro boat. Anyone who claims they are a specialist ferro surveyor will just take your money and look over the boat.

He will survey Ferro hulls although this is not his area of expertise. He will check over the hull for obvious signs of weakness or damage, but if there is somthing obvious to be sen here you probably will not be needing a surveyor to point these defects out, as they will be extremely obvious.

Beyond this though there could be hidden stresses within the ferro cement that no surveyor would or could ever spot. Just because the boat is professionally built will not mean that it is free from these stresses. There are some fairly shonky professionally layed up hulls around.

He will however go throughout the boat and check all other areas, as he would any other boat. Skin fittings, engine, sails, rigging etc etc etc.

On a good note though he did say if the hull is over 10-12 years old and there have been no hidden ferro problems arise, it would be more than likely that the hull is ok. Major stress cracks usually show up within the first 2 years after launching, 5 years later it would be scarce to find a boat with an unkown fault.

Good luck
 
Allow me to reiterate myself:

I said an older hull is better cured.

I said information on the build is a bonus because you can guage workmanship (that is not aparent after plastering).

I said our armature was surveyed prior to plastering so we know it wasn't a "fairly shonky professionally laid up" hull.

I also said information on the mix used is important. I neglected to add that we have the slump tests that were taken by the engineer during plastering and we have the 3 day log book during the steaming to cure the hull with all temperatures taken hourly at all hull stations and any adjustment made to steam generator positioning.
.....................................................................

The reason for finding this information out is because it tells you things a tap with a surveying hammer can't. I know that when I read on the plans that 1" re-bar should be used in the forward bilde that it actually is there based on the preplastering survey pictures and notes. I also know that when a specific PSI cement was required that he didn't use ready-mix because I have the slump tests.

To suggest that the integrity of a ferro hull is a mystery that not even the most seasoned surveyor can unravel only adds to the unfair stigma that these boats already carry.

Boats of wood and GRP (I have owned and been happy with both) probably have a greater likelyhood of suffering catastrophic events, such as burst planks or a dropped keel, due to hidden deficiencies compared to a well documented ferro hull. And yes, I am well aware I never have to wonder about my keelbolts or plank joints during any long passage.

I'm not saying there aren't drawbacks to cement. All materials have drawbacks. I'm just saying the comments of running away from cement, or they're heavy pigs, and they're brittle and will break in half if you ever touch bottom are just comments that are usually made to make a person feel justified in the material they prefer.

A person recently said to me, "You're boat is cement? Cement doesn't float! Why doesn't it sink?". I said, "Steel doesn't float either, yet you don't ask the same questions when you take the ferry."
 
I go along with what you say. Until recently I ran a company that employed around 35 surveyors. We refused to survey any ferrocement hull, and that regardless of its pedigree - in some cases that was refusing to survey hulls which had been built under the surviellence of our own surveyors years before.

It is not possible to determine their actual condition except from a cosmetic point of view only.

I am not saying that they are not a good buy for some but their price reflects the risk in them.

John
 
Some perspective though. A well built ferro hull will last as long as a GRP hull, and maybe even longer. The doom and gloom about them is largely due to home builds, and there are many excellent builds out there too.
 
Yes, a ferro hull may very well be as good as a glass one, but how do you ever know? If, in fact it is a good'un, then one can assume that it may not stay that way - it should be remembered that if one has an unfortunate accident in a ferro boat requiring hull patching, then it will never be as good as a glass one after a similar extent repair. A glass boat can be repaired almost as, or as good as new and metal boats as good as new, but the equivalent damage to a ferro boat and it will be nowhere close to new.

One can inspect a ferro hull and see that it has a nice new coat of paint on it and looks fair, no rust stains etc. But without stripping the boat how do you tell what is under the paint. Maybe a big fresh patch somewhere (repairs have a reputation of failing around the margins) but how do you ensure there isn't unless one strips the coatings off and then the joinery out of the inside to see if any patching found goes right through?

And what is starting to happen or is happening inside the hull but still hidden from view? - cannot tell or measure in any way whatsoever. In other constructions, while one can almost always determine any problems without destructive intervention, it is not unknown to holesaw/cut out core samples (eg in a diagonally laid timber cored laminate) to check suspicion and a pile of them to determine the extent of any problem found - those are easy to repair as good as new after. One would never risk doing that to ferrocement because even after repair a problem of reliability will have been introduced.

I am not saying that people should not buy them but am saying that they should be aware that the low price of such vessels reflects the risk in them.

The ferrocement cultism, however, demands that we attribute the low cost to the construction's bad press, some badly built amateur ones, and lack of understanding by everyone else - not to risk. They also tend to point out that boats' of other constructions rigs may fall down, rudders fail, etc, etc, seemingly forgetting that those things are just as likely to happen to ferrocement boats too.

John
 
Can we all still love you (in the "just friends" way, you understand /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif) without loving ferro?

Have followed your boaty fotos here and on your blog and looks a nice boat Maria and I think you should concentrate on enjoying her without worry. You got a lot of boat for the money and that is the certainly the big advantage of ferro.

John
 
Yes, and I'll love y'all back, be you tinnies or tupperwares.
I agree about the bargain with the boat. Would actually have paid much more for her, if the truth be known. We looked at a Hartley for 50K and well, there really was no comparison. As we dug deeper with the Hartley, whose owners claimed it had been built by Hartley himself, umm, in Rhodesia, we discovered that Hartley hadn't even been to Africa, let alone built a boat there, so we decided to offer a lot less for it, given the lack of builder's pedigree, and 'lost' the boat. Good thing we did.
Well, time to get out for some fresh air before this weekend's typhoon hits.
Ja ne, beloved gits.
 
Great - say "Meouwwwrrr, prrr" to Yoda for me (that's real cat talk for friendly "Hi there, what's it like to be a cool cat in Japan?").

John
 
If its impossible to survey a ferro hull is it also impossible to survey any ferro structure.

I would have thought that there were ways to assure quality of ferro used in construction of buildings, bridges etc.

Is there perhaps some form of ultra-sound mechanism to give a view of the interior of the substance by examining reflections.

Don't have a ferro boat so not worried personally but curious. It seems odd that a material so widely used has no effective means of quality check.
 
As far as price is concerned with reflection to bad press, reputation, etc., there may be some misunderstanding here. As well, John, saying that the low cost reflects the risk in them is a bit of a misnomer. More accurate would be to say that when you build a hull with $500 of silica cement and $2000 of re-bar and chichen wire, I don't care how polished your binacle is, your boat is not a Beneteau. To say that your resale will be low is not a negative because your initial investment is going to be lower. Basically, they are not cheap because cement is problematic, they are cheap because they are cement.

Something that hasn't been addressed is weight. A properly built cement boat over the 36' range will weigh approxiamately the same as a GRP boat in the same size range. Also, as a point of interest, the hull is usually between 1.25"-1.5" thick and decks are around 3/4"-1" thick

A little more perspective here. Think of the wire mesh and rebar as fibreglass cloth and stringers and the cement mix as epoxy resin.

And yes, with a painted hull it is almost impossible to rate the mix. We were fortunate to find our boat on the hard (the builder died of cancer the year before) in need of the bottom coat being redone so were able to break off patches of the epoxy fairing and expose the smooth cement beneath. The bare cement should not look like a sidewalk. There shouldn't be gravel bits or small voids, it should be smooth, uniform, and granite-like in texture.

Oh, and don't confuse streaks from black tar epoxy fairing compound with rust streaks. The older boats, out here at least, used this product and over time as it breaks down it leaches out as brown ooze that leaves what look like rust stains on the boat.

I think everyone here has been contributing well to an intelligent conversation on ferro, I hope you are finding it helpfull.
 
<<Oh, and don't confuse streaks from black tar epoxy fairing compound with rust streaks. The older boats, out here at least, used this product and over time as it breaks down it leaches out as brown ooze that leaves what look like rust stains on the boat.>>

Wayward son

How will I identify the difference between rust and tar epoxy? I know the boat has had tar epoxy on the hull... It would be good to know which is which before starting to chip holes in the boat.

cheers
Charles
 
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