Hardboard in yacht construction.

[graham]

With the cost of decent plywood going up all the time and the quality of it coming down I have built a small yacht using hardboard for the hull.

Provided I keep it well varnished(from a distance it looks like teak)I cant see a problem.We rarely go more than 10 miles from shore so i am happy.

We have had some very negative comments about our little boat and feel them to be unjustified.

 

[Norman_E]

Try posting a fresh link to the image, so that we can see it.
My concern about hardboard would be physical strength rather than the ability to waterproof it with enough varnish. As a boy I built a model boat with hardboard. It was an elctric powered boat for use in straight running "steering competition" events, so was built very long and narrow. It never waterlogged, but eventually I dropped it and the hardboard cracked.

 

[boatmike]

Looks like a good plug for a mould for a GRP dinghy to me.... Liberal coating of release agent and you could get a mould off it with no trouble from which you could make hundreds of them. Personally I would do it quickly though and not get it wet in the mean time!

 

[tugboat]

A good many years ago, an elderly friend of mine had an old Caprice sailing yacht (same as Shane Acton's Shrimpy). She was as rotten as a pear! The seams were covered with strips of vinyl wallpaper held on with drawing pins and then painted over. Honest, I kid you not! He used to potter about on the river Dart using an old Seagull outboard. I was youngish and mad and one day when I was on leave I suggested we take her for a sail as he had never even put up the sails. He was old and mad and said OK. We took her out into Start Bay (only a mile outside the castles) and had a stonking sail up and down for an hour before discretion prevailed. The look on his face as he steered his boat under sail for the first (and only) time is something I'll never forget. A happy day.

Not sure if your post/photo is genuine or spoof but just reminded me that people go afloat in daft vessels sometimes.

 

[neil_s]

I built a pram dinghy from hardboard. I painted it, then left it out all year round. It lasted for about 3 years. In the end, the hardboard became a bit soggy around the fastenings. Where I had glued it, it was OK, though

Neil

 

[duncanmack]

I remember a range of sectional tenders made in hardboard. Can't remember the name - it was 40 years ago. I'll see if I can find out..

Anyway, they were super boats, up to about 14'.

 

[Birdseye]

you might be joking (I hope you are) but I saw with my own eyes a Spanish shipwright in Bilbao expending and repairing the rudder of a Fjord motorsailer with hardboard lightly glassed over. Same man repaired the planking of a wooden boat with softwood but joints and mild steel nails under the watching gaze of the Spanish owner.

Mind you in the same marina I saw a man up a mast with a spary gun, repainting the mast and overspraying all the boats nearby. The Spanish seemed very relaxed about it!

 

[graham]

I have to come clean that it was in fact a temporary male mould I built ,over which a small grp bilgekeeler was layed up.

I would never use this method again due to the huge amount of work involved sanding and fairing the grp hull.On the plus side you get a beautifull finish on the inside.