Steel boats what advantages ?

[prv]

You would need a pretty healthy generator as well. Something on the llines of 8 to 10 kva. Your Honda 2eu will not cut it.

Depends on how much juice you want out of the welder. My workshop has a 16 amp breaker and both stick and MIG machines work fine (not at the same time, obviously). OK, they're towards the smaller end of the range, but ought to be ok for fixing, say, a new deck fitting.

Pete

 

[Iliade]

Carbon Arc

I remember seeing a picture on someone's blog in which a local lad in some far flung corner of the earth was patching a steel hull for the owner on a beach using what looked like a few car batteries, a proper "A" team job! I can't see him doing that with aluminium and I doubt if he had an AC TIG welder in his hut.

Probably a carbon arc welder, which is really a sort of brazing &/or bronze welding. I suspect with the correct rod one might bodge an ally repair until it could be done 'properly.'

They are very small & light so, as youths, we carried one on a sahara trip and managed to repair the rear suspension with it, using only the car's battery.

 

[binch]

Al and Fe

Three little points about steel and ally.
Wintered in Cala Galera alongside an aluminium racing yacht. After about a month it became evident that the ally yacht was being eaten alive. Panic change of berth.
When changing HMS Rocket from destroyer to frigate (about 1948) the admiralty cut her off at deck level and gave her comppletely new superstructure which was bolted on with an insulating gasket.
Three months after acceptance trials, the aluminium had corroded holes.

Airbus produce a method of welding ally to steel. They take strips of 1 cm square, place them together and then subject the joint to violent pressure with explosives. The two strips merge at the join. It is then possible to weld the steel half to ordinary steel and the ally half to ally. It works well. At least one Dutch boatbuilder is using it.
It's an arm and a leg job though.

 

[KellysEye]

Comments on a few points.

- Maintenance. As I've mentionrd before all boaty bits are designed for weekend/holiday use. Long distance cruising is 24x365 use and everything breaks. We spent two days a week on fixing things, a little of which was general maintenance such as changing oil and filters. We spent about the same time dealing with rust, you need to act as soon as you find it.

- I' m not aware of any steel boat owner carrying welding gear, I think welding at sea would be impossible because of the motion.

- If you have a magnetic compass on a boat it must be swung, the deviation is awesome. Fluxgate compasses are desinged for steel boats but the position of it is paramount, usually in the centre of the beam and length away from large lumps of metal and electronics. We have both.

 

[prv]

Airbus produce a method of welding ally to steel. They take strips of 1 cm square, place them together and then subject the joint to violent pressure with explosives. The two strips merge at the join. It is then possible to weld the steel half to ordinary steel and the ally half to ally. It works well. At least one Dutch boatbuilder is using it.

I understood that explosively-welded strip was fairly standard technology these days. Stavros has a steel hull and decks, but the upper works are aluminium. They're welded together via a strip which I assume is one of these. That was done in an ordinary shipyard 12 years ago and I doubt they'd have gone for anything cutting-edge at the time.

- I' m not aware of any steel boat owner carrying welding gear, I think welding at sea would be impossible because of the motion.

Maybe not at sea, but at anchor or alongside?

Pete

 

[noelex]

Three little points about steel and ally..

combining steel an and aluminium is very bad idea in a boat. It has been done in larger vessels mainly as way to reduce the costs of producing the hull in steel, or updating a steel boat, but there is no need to do this in a yacht.
If you want an aluminium boat spent a little more money and make the whole structure aluminium.

 

[KellysEye]

I have to say I've never met a long distance sailor who welds but presumably there are a few who carry the kit.

 

[prv]

I have to say I've never met a long distance sailor who welds but presumably there are a few who carry the kit.

Well, the owner of the stereotypical home-built monstrosity must be able to weld, by definition. I assume at least some of them do eventually manage to launch. If you built the boat, seems a no-brainer to keep the kit on board (or at least a smaller version that can run off a genny) for minor modifications.

Pete

 

[KellysEye]

Yes that does make sense if homebuild. I think if there are others they will be seeking welding work at places they stop, to top up the cruising budget. The previous owner of our boat was a shipwright specialising in teak decks and repairs, he made a good living but had to stay everywhere for as long as the job(s) took. Not my idea of fun.

 

[TQA]

For a story of a steel boat build read this

http://www.thebigsailboatproject.com/sail1fr.htm