Steelboats

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Tranona said:
Once again you are being highly selective with your "statistics".

Please give PRECISE details of the "several" boats lost through skeg failures.

Are you so detached from the rest of the world that you are not aware of the hurricanes in the Caribbean in 2017 which destroyed complete island communities and inevitably many hundreds of boats, some of which no doubt were built of steel. Equally inevitably the majority of the boats destroyed would be GRP for the simple reason that the majority are built of GRP.

When are you going to learn that people here are not taken in by your unsubstantiated claims which only show how ignorant you are about the subject.
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In his book"Boatbuilding With Steel " Gilbert C Klingle mentioned one of his steel boats being blown 300 yards inland by a hurricane . The owner, a navy admiral, simply had her dragged by a navy tug, the 300 yards overland, back to the ocean. ,.No damage, That was done with one of my 36 footers "Viski" in Suva. Again No serious damage . This is a clear sign that would have happened to many of the boats lost in the hurricanes. But the repeated lie 'Steel bad. Plastic good. "means they are forced by public conceptions ,to go for boats which don't survive, and bill their clients porportionately.
Far more would have survived, had they been steel, especially the 3/16th hull plate I use , as opposed to the 1/8th most use.
 
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Brent Swain said:
In his book"Boatbuilding With Steel " Gilbert C Klingle mentioned one of his steel boats being blown 300 yards inland by a hurricane . The owner, a navy admiral, simply had her dragged by a navy tug, the 300 yards overland, back to the ocean. ,.No damage, That was done with one of my 36 footers "Viski" in Suva. Again No serious damage . This is a clear sign that would have happened to many of the boats lost in the hurricanes. But the repeated lie 'Steel bad. Plastic good. "means they are forced by public conceptions ,to go for boats which don't survive, and bill their clients porportionately.
Far more would have survived, had they been steel, especially the 3/16th hull plate I use , as opposed to the 1/8th most use.
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Brent, you are wrong. GRP is always better than steel.

The ONLY place for steel on a proper yacht is in the anchor.
 
Brent Swain said:
Dangerously inadequate for the kid who lost his boat in a collision with a whale at night, for those who convinced Tom Cunliffe to state that the fig leaf rudder has the highest failure rate of any rudder design , for the Sleavin family , for the hundreds lost in the west indies in a single year last year, dangerously fragile enough for the Cal 48 I mentioned, losing his rudder in sheltered water in a flat sea, those lost in the 79 fastnet race, Pandemonium which lost its keel in mid Pacific, those lost in Cabo in 82, and many many more.
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You didn’t answer my question but cite the slack handful of incidents that you’ve managed to scrape together. You haven’t proved anything but you’ve merely mentioned some incidents that have helped form your opinion.

I don’t think you ought to start quoting the ’79 Fastnet. People abandoning boats that were later found to be still floating. I don’t recall a single steel boat In the fleet. Some valuable lessons were learned about safety equipment and yacht design though. Nobody started saying ‘if only I’d had a steel boat...’.

PS you’ve complained about name calling but you’re still referring to ‘marina queens’. If that isn’t name calling what is?
 
Brent Swain said:
In his book"Boatbuilding With Steel " Gilbert C Klingle mentioned one of his steel boats being blown 300 yards inland by a hurricane . The owner, a navy admiral, simply had her dragged by a navy tug, the 300 yards overland, back to the ocean. ,.No damage, That was done with one of my 36 footers "Viski" in Suva. Again No serious damage . This is a clear sign that would have happened to many of the boats lost in the hurricanes. But the repeated lie 'Steel bad. Plastic good. "means they are forced by public conceptions ,to go for boats which don't survive, and bill their clients porportionately.
Far more would have survived, had they been steel, especially the 3/16th hull plate I use , as opposed to the 1/8th most use.
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If the post above is supposed to be an answer to Tranona's post, why are you quoting total crap and not answering the direct question. He asked "Please give PRECISE details of boats lost through skeg failures. "

If you cant, your credibility is totally gone.

We are expected to believe the nonsense you spout about GRP boat failures when you cannot give one substantiated link.

If your intelligence is so low that you cannot differentiate between a major hurricane wiping out whole island communities as well as most of the boats moored there and expecting us to believe had they been steel they would have all survived, you live in a fantasy world.

But I think most of us knew that already...…………………………….
 
Can I ask you all to have a thought and prayer for Jean Socrates. I read on the PBO forum she is expected at Cape Horn soon, winds 27-35 KTS expected.

As she is in a GRP boat she must be in mortal danger, halfway round her third circumnavigation.

For the life of me I cant think why this long term liveaboard who sails in out of the way places ignored BS's advice and chose an inferior material for her vessel.

There is nowt as queer as folk...……………………..
 
rotrax said:
Can I ask you all to have a thought and prayer for Jean Socrates. I read on the PBO forum she is expected at Cape Horn soon, winds 27-35 KTS expected.

As she is in a GRP boat she must be in mortal danger, halfway round her third circumnavigation.

For the life of me I cant think why this long term liveaboard who sails in out of the way places ignored BS's advice and chose an inferior material for her vessel.

There is nowt as queer as folk...……………………..
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You have to give her credit for perseverence after the setbacks she's had. Fingers crossed she doen't have any more and makes it round.
 
rotrax said:
Can I ask you all to have a thought and prayer for Jean Socrates. I read on the PBO forum she is expected at Cape Horn soon, winds 27-35 KTS expected.

As she is in a GRP boat she must be in mortal danger, halfway round her third circumnavigation.

For the life of me I cant think why this long term liveaboard who sails in out of the way places ignored BS's advice and chose an inferior material for her vessel.

There is nowt as queer as folk...……………………..
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Has she managed to avoid having her skeg ripped off my one of those pesky mid-ocean bars weve been warned about?
 
rotrax said:
Can I ask you all to have a thought and prayer for Jean Socrates. I read on the PBO forum she is expected at Cape Horn soon, winds 27-35 KTS expected.

As she is in a GRP boat she must be in mortal danger, halfway round her third circumnavigation.

For the life of me I cant think why this long term liveaboard who sails in out of the way places ignored BS's advice and chose an inferior material for her vessel.

There is nowt as queer as folk...……………………..
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She is in a metal boat, an aluminium boat, I believe a friend built her. Had the boat been a stock plastic boat, it would have had a lot of serious structural problems by now. Aluminium is an exponentially tougher material than plastic .
 
rotrax said:
Yes, she really is driven. She appears to have found something to do with her life that satisfies her.

Lets hope she continues without too many drama's.
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The old Chinese proverb " A human is like a bicycle. As long as you are moving towards a goal ,you are stable. Stop and you fall over " applies here . Its not the destination which matters, its the journey, the daily sense of progress.
 
rotrax said:
If the post above is supposed to be an answer to Tranona's post, why are you quoting total crap and not answering the direct question. He asked "Please give PRECISE details of boats lost through skeg failures. "

If you cant, your credibility is totally gone.

We are expected to believe the nonsense you spout about GRP boat failures when you cannot give one substantiated link.

If your intelligence is so low that you cannot differentiate between a major hurricane wiping out whole island communities as well as most of the boats moored there and expecting us to believe had they been steel they would have all survived, you live in a fantasy world.

But I think most of us knew that already...…………………………….
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Search Metalboatsociety.org then go to forums. There is a lengthy discussion on skeg failures. Yes metal boats have skeg failures too, mostly Roberts designs, which have been designed to have the skeg fall of if they hit anything.( as he mentions in his latest book) Properly done, that chance on a metal boat is extremely rare . Even more rare, now hat so many are being built with no skeg with a much higher rudder failure rate , than any with skeg sported rudders.
Read of Nigel Calder's skeg failure in the December 2018 issue of Sail magazine, and his mention of a sister ship being lost by the same skeg failure in mid ocean.
John Morris says he knows Calder. Perhaps you could get him to introduce you to Calder, and you can tell him to his face that he is a liar, that his skeg never failed, and he just imagined it, because you know more about what happened on his boat than he does.
And you claim credibility, or to be a good judge of credibility?
 
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When you are doing work on your steel boat, and have no foam to worry about ,it is a good time to replace a lot of the mild steel fittings with stainless. Hatch coamings should be stainless, along with bow rollers , cleats, handrails, chocks, etc . A stainless round down your stem and around your transom corners, can also reduce maintenance there, ( stainless welds over the area also help) as can a stainless nose cone where your anchor hits the bow. These stainless bits and pieces don't amount to a lot of expense, especially from scrapyard stainless.
 
Brent Swain said:
She is in a metal boat, an aluminium boat, I believe a friend built her. Had the boat been a stock plastic boat, it would have had a lot of serious structural problems by now. Aluminium is an exponentially tougher material than plastic .
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Brent, she is sailing a Najad 380, GRP through and through and made in Sweden. It is called Neireida and she left from Victoria, BC in October this year.She states-and she should know after two circumnavigations-that the Najad 380 is a small but perfect blue water boat. Google her and get the true facts, not the total bolleux you serve out each untrue post.

I don't know where you get this fixation about metal boats. Now explain why a well built GRP boat would have suffered a lot of serious structural problems by now. Her Najad certainly has not, and very few GRP boats-BY COMPARISON TO THE NUMBERS MADE-ever suffer such problems. Some do, we don't live in a perfect world, after all. But very few. And far more are used for serious cross ocean sailing than steel boats.

The old Vikings did OK in timber boats, Brent, and I am sure there were far greater dangers at sea for them-many more whales for a start. They had no charts as we know them, very basic nav gear and small undecked boats.

I think we have worked out that for you and others who live your lifestyle steel is the ideal material.

For the rest of us, other materials work as well for us as steel works for you.

I doubt it is possible but please stop boring the arse off us with the same old same old untrue drivel.

You cant answer the direct question about the precise skeg failures on GRP boats and you believe Jean Socrates is using an Aluminium boat.

Any credibility you had about anything other than building a low maintenance origami steel boat is now gone.

You have self destructed.

IMHO, of course...……………………...
 
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Brent Swain said:
Read of Nigel Calder's skeg failure in the December 2018 issue of Sail magazine, and his mention of a sister ship being lost by the same skeg failure in mid ocean.
John Morris says he knows Calder. Perhaps you could get him to introduce you to Calder, and you can tell him to his face that he is a liar, that his skeg never failed, and he just imagined it, because you know more about what happened on his boat than he does.
And you claim credibility, or to be a good judge of credibility?
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You obviously have not read John Morris post properly. He does not dispute the skeg problem. Neither do I.

He states that he knows him and he is a great fan of GRP.

That's what he said.

Your steel wasted mind fabricated the rest-you imagine others are "attacking" steel boats, when they did no such thing. You are, as I have clearly said before, incapable of rational debate.

You are a rant and raver par excellence though.
 
Oh dear, it looks as if Brent is right. Another steel boat runs aground and gets of scot free*. Wretched British coastline ...

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthrea...in-blames-%93Unsafe-UK-shipping-conditions%94

*not intended as a racist remark or to indicate any impure thoughts about Caledonian parsimony., merely to indicate the Russian ship hit land, doubtless annihilated millions of scallops and sea horses, and then left without paying landing charges.
 
I am led to believe that Brent is one of the admin/moderators of the ‘Metal Boatsociety’ website and forums. He’s extolled that websites virtues as it doesn’t allow criticism of steel boats and has also repeatedly asked people to use it as a source to verify the veracity of some of his claims. Furthermore I suspect he is an admin for the Steel Boat Facebook group.

If this is true, then I suggest people treat Brent’s phantasmagorical claims with even more caution than most already appear to be doing.

Academically it’s extremely dishonest.
 
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