Lifespan of grp boats

My 1965 Invicta 26 was still going strong when I sold her 3 years ago. I would not expect her to deteriorate greatly (unless left untouched and neglected) for many more years.
My 'new' boat a 1980 Sadler, someone commented the other day how good the original gelcoat hull looked.
 
bushwacka said:
Interesting article got me thinking as there are a lot of GRP hulls from the 1960-70s still around - are they really starting to degrade now and reaching the end of their lifespan?

Nautical not nice: how fibreglass boats have become a global pollution problem
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There were some strange conclusions drawn. For instance, "researchers from Plymouth University found high concentrations of copper, zinc and lead in sediment samples and inside the guts of ragworms in two estuaries in eastern England (Orwell and Blackwater). These contaminants greatly exceeded the environmental quality guidelines, and came from peeling paints from boats abandoned nearby." Isn't it more likely that the contaminants came from boats travelling around those waters, rather than the few which get abandoned?
 
There seems to be little definite research on this topic, for example the article suggests that an increasingly large number of 1960's70's boats have been abandoned or have reached the end of their lives, but I wonder if this is fact or supposition, my last boat (built 1965j is still in use as are many I know of this era, and in fact the number of older GRP boats I know of that are still in use greatly outnumber those that I know of that are either abandoned, reaching the end of their lives or even aren't in regular use.
Of course there is a need for a GRP boat disposal scheme, but I question the assumption that the problem is any where near as large as the article suggest.
The environmental damage occurring from the odd GRP hull sinking to the seabed is I would suggest is minuscule compared to the volumes of untreated sewage that our water companies allow to enter the water , that and the careless littering of our beaches with empty plastic bottles, takeaway trays etc. Eetc.
 
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bushwacka said:
are they really starting to degrade now and reaching the end of their lifespan?
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The hulls aren't, but the boats will be if they haven't been maintained. It's no good having a still-sound fibreglass hull with a rusted-solid engine, rotted-out plywood interior, corroded, broken, and missing deck fittings, etc. Nobody with any sense will want it to use as a boat, when they can get a going concern for a fraction of the rebuild cost, so it's a valueless chunk of unrecycleable refuse regardless of the state of the hull layup.

Pete
 
pvb said:
There were some strange conclusions drawn. For instance, "researchers from Plymouth University found high concentrations of copper, zinc and lead in sediment samples and inside the guts of ragworms in two estuaries in eastern England (Orwell and Blackwater). These contaminants greatly exceeded the environmental quality guidelines, and came from peeling paints from boats abandoned nearby." Isn't it more likely that the contaminants came from boats travelling around those waters, rather than the few which get abandoned?
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I feel a new tax coming on.....
 
GRP wasn't too well understood in the early days, and seems to have either been treated over-optimistically as a 'wonder material' and built with just enough thickness to do the job, but not enough other stiffening, or in most cases massively 'overbuilt'. Having had to do some serious reinforcing of the bottom of mine to keep the keel on, I know it's the former.
 
Not many people want the older, smaller boats any more, even the good ones which are getting fewer and fewer and certainly not enough to fit new engines, rigs, sails, etc. to them. So there are a growing number of non-degrading fibreglass hulls. While a boat may have reached the end of it's lifespan in the sense that nobody wants it invariably the hull would be okay to use - my 51 year old Bowman 26 has newish just about everything apart from hull and internal woodwork. In another ten or fifteen or even twenty years time the hull will probably be ok but the chances of there being anyone willing to pay for a new engine, sails, rigging, bunk cushions, etc. in order to keep her usable is less and less as time goes by...
 
"However, many are also disposed of at sea, usually by simply drilling a hole in the hull and leaving it to sink someplace offshore. "
Well that would be a lot of hard work. Most would cut the pipes from a hull fitting and leave it to flood. For a senior lecturer in marine biology at Brighton University to make a comment like this shows very little knowledge of boats despite using them for some of her studies. Her blinkered vision is solely about marine life and her opinion shows little thought for other sources of the chemicals like TBT used on ship's or rubbish that has entered the marine environment. You can hardly believe this is The Guardian not the Daily Mail publishing this.
 
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