Gelcoat? Too heavy!

[extravert]

The Seaon trimaran (9.6m LOA, Swedish made, introduced recently) doesn't use gelcoat on the outer surface of its CFRP construction. It's been replaced by a paint system. Replacing gelcoat by paint saves 640g per square metre of hull, or 60kg for the boat as a whole. (Gelcoat 840g/m2, paint 200g/m2).

You wouldn't think that just your gelcoat weighs as much as another crew member.

<hr width=100% size=1>Summer is what you expect - rain is what you get.

 

[rwoofer]

I kitesurf and my boards don't have gelcoat. The laminates are sanded to a smooth finish and painted. Means they only weigh 2 Kilos.

Experience has shown that the gelcoat was not really contributing since a "ding" always got through the gelcoat anyway.

Sheathing in materials other than gelcoat (which has been done on windsurfers for years) does seem to have solved the ding problem to a large extent. Be interesting to see if boats get sheaved in some kind of plastic instead of gelcoat.

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[snowleopard]

the middle way is to make the gelcoat just thick enough to give a good surface, not to provide a perfect colour finish. the manufacturers don't do this as it is cheaper to open another drum than to paint afterwards. you won't save the full weight of the gelcoat because you end up using more laminating resin to fill the surface of the laminate, then you add the weight of paint!

then again, for those who bung a lump of lead on the bottom, what's the odds?!

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