How would yachting have developed without GRP?

lustyd said:
I thought that, but then assumed he meant no composite plastics at all (which would also preclude a lot of the more modern wood). Realistically, I think he just wanted an excuse to talk about wooden boats because he's forgotten what a nightmare they are :)
Click to expand...
No I was just musing. and besides I have owned four wooden boats and don’t recall any nightmare scenarios,even with auxiliary power being a seagull and a Stuart Turner,probably my nightmares are related to various inboard engines that had problems beyond me being able to fix except by praying
 
lustyd said:
Probably age related, unless you were wealthy enough that someone else maintained it for you!
Click to expand...
No all the wooden boats I maintained ,all of different construction ,my Mashford four tonner ,a 23footer yacht from thr 1940s I spent six months rebuilding.The help I had was with the engines and I freely confess I just hoped they kept going which luckily the did!
 
It is really difficult to say without understanding the history of material science around the time that GRP was being developed. Bakelite was the first fully synthetic plastic and could that have been manipulated to create hull designs? Cellulose plastics were also being developed even earlier than Bakelite, at the turn of the last century, so who knows where they would have ended up if development continued. Today moulded plant based plastics have started to become common e.g. food containers.
 
I worked on two wooden boats as a boat bum in the late '90's. Great memories, not least of that incomparable wooden ship smell.

The first one has since sunk three times. I think it's fair to say that the third sinking was the last one. What's left of her has been on the bottom for just over a decade.

The second one (a national historic ship) was dismantled in the teens and to the best of my knowlage, no longer exists in any meaningful way.

Both had a ton of money spent on them - it must have run out eventually.

Two more historic ships based in Liverpool sank in the last 10-15 years. Both were owned by charitable trusts (as most are) and operated as sail training vessels so presumably maintained - but obviously not enough.

That's 4 I know of that were cared for and maintained but no longer exist.

Nothing compares to sailing and if possible living on a wooden boat. Everything about them, the smells, textures, the arcane skills required to sail and maintain them. It's just outstanding.

Problem is you need a continuous fire hydrant of money to keep them afloat. If the flow of money ever stops or even slows it can be game over pretty quickly. It's easy enough to find passionate people beacuse of the obvious attractions of these vessels, but very hard to keep that dedication going forever.
 
Supertramp said:
Perhaps also consider that if there was no GRP, would we still have Terylene? Durable sails were a revolution at the same time.
Click to expand...
They certainly were. We no longer had to hang the sails in the sail shed to dry before bagging them. On the other hand, terylene sails were so much more powerful and caught the wind so quickly that we had to re-learn how to sail just to avoid capsizing.
 
obmij said:
I worked on two wooden boats as a boat bum in the late '90's. Great memories, not least of that incomparable wooden ship smell.

The first one has since sunk three times. I think it's fair to say that the third sinking was the last one. What's left of her has been on the bottom for just over a decade.

The second one (a national historic ship) was dismantled in the teens and to the best of my knowlage, no longer exists in any meaningful way.

Both had a ton of money spent on them - it must have run out eventually.

Two more historic ships based in Liverpool sank in the last 10-15 years. Both were owned by charitable trusts (as most are) and operated as sail training vessels so presumably maintained - but obviously not enough.

That's 4 I know of that were cared for and maintained but no longer exist.

Nothing compares to sailing and if possible living on a wooden boat. Everything about them, the smells, textures, the arcane skills required to sail and maintain them. It's just outstanding.

Problem is you need a continuous fire hydrant of money to keep them afloat. If the flow of money ever stops or even slows it can be game over pretty quickly. It's easy enough to find passionate people beacuse of the obvious attractions of these vessels, but very hard to keep that dedication going forever.
Click to expand...
There is a west country ketch owned by the female skipper which seems to pay Itwas and I think for sale
 
Minerva said:
I only got a little way through that before turning him off. He comes across rather quite the pub bore.
Click to expand...
He used to be on this forum, an "interesting" charachter ... have a quick look at the last few pages of this thread ....

W

Thread 'Steelboats'

I had a steel hull and deck built which I fitted out.Fairly inexpensive way to get afloat but the hull. And deck are only 25% of the whole thing still if non yacht type materials used in interior fit out and. A keen eye kept on boat jumbles a proper seaworthy boat can be got float.Fertan was an initial error and so where built in tanks.Interior treated with car underbody stuff that worked and interior rust was not a problem.Decide what standard you want to achieve the less yacht finish the cheaper and quicker.Sold the boat and it’s still going 30 yeRs on.
 
Baggywrinkle said:
He used to be on this forum, an "interesting" charachter ... have a quick look at the last few pages of this thread ....

W

Thread 'Steelboats'

I had a steel hull and deck built which I fitted out.Fairly inexpensive way to get afloat but the hull. And deck are only 25% of the whole thing still if non yacht type materials used in interior fit out and. A keen eye kept on boat jumbles a proper seaworthy boat can be got float.Fertan was an initial error and so where built in tanks.Interior treated with car underbody stuff that worked and interior rust was not a problem.Decide what standard you want to achieve the less yacht finish the cheaper and quicker.Sold the boat and it’s still going 30 yeRs on.
Click to expand...
Was that boring ,sorry!
 
It is a nonsense question as even without grp, a means of low cost rapid production material would have developed. Whether papier maché and resin, dandruff and epoxy, horsehair and vinylester,re-inforced injection moulding - something would have developed enabling factory mass production.
 
KevinV said:
If we'd gone the route of aluminium we wouldn't have the issue of abandoned boats clogging our rivers and estuaries - it's valuable enough to be worth (nicking and) stripping old boats. Maybe it could still make the step to mass production if made in pressed sections?

Wood is terrible as all the stuff required to build and maintain it is nasty, and eventually ends up in the environment either through rotting or burning.

GRP is turning out to have a longer life than the other component parts of a boat, so we have uneconomical hulls all over the place.

Duroplast (of Trabant fame) might have been interesting - using linen and a bio-resin now it still might be. A compostable hull sounds like quite a good idea.

3D printing thermoplastic is probably the way forward - easy to change design, no expensive moulds to make, can be made with recycled material, and in turn recycled again.
Click to expand...
Doing my bit for the environment then, buying a steel boat!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Other threads that may be of interest

SimonX
Steel hull inspection
Replies
3
Views
215
Seastoke
Seastoke

Share this page

Top