Steelboats

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rotrax said:
Sounds very much like the way my two Island Packet yachts were laid up. I have seen the plug that was bored to fit the depth transponder-over 30mm thick. Tri radial rovings hand laid up makes a sound boat. Other quality vessels in GRP, think Nauticat, Najad, HR, Swan, Cabo Rico, Malo, Sweden Yachts etc.-all good strong vessels.

On the subject of deck leaks, my 16 year old, several Atlantic crossing-not by me-IP 350 had a leaky portlight-stripped threads through overtightening-easily rectified, and a leak through a stantion base after a mooring incident in high winds-it got bent and tweaked the base, bending the mounting screws. Not such an easy fix as the bent screws were reluctant to revolve and were fastened into a glassed in aluminium base plate. I drilled the heads off and used a new pair of vice grips on the protruding ends to tweak them straighter and then remove and replace them after resealing.

My ex-pat mate who lives on Whidby Island has a Flicka, cracking boat. Did Pacific Seacraft make them?

Merry Christmas Brent, and a happy and successful new year.
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HI Rotrax and Brent, hoping you are both keeping well. Pacific Seacraft did buid some of the Flickas, and their finished boats looked really nice, but did cost a lot. They went out of business and i think someone in South Africa bought the moulds. Brent, the Bruce Roberts 281 was 28 feet loa and it was quite beamy at 9feet 8 inches maximum beam. My two brothers and their families, who live in Surrey B.C. and 100 Mile House, tell me that a lot has changed in B.C. and not all for the good. My first job was in Vancouver working for B.C. Marine just off the 2nd narrows bridge. i was working on the interior fitting out of a Dome Petroleum ship, the Broderick. What really surprised me was how many young women were working as welders on the ship! They were great workers and really strong.
Wishing everyone a peaceful, enjoyable sailing 2019.
 
Friend of mine a Galician bought a Flica back in 1991 or there about from an American who said the boat could take it but he couldn’t!...after a rough passage across the Atlantic...Anyway my mate still has the boat and sits in fine weather on the foredeck in a cut down garden seat as the boat ploughing it’s way up and down the Ria de Vigo
 
rotrax said:
Sounds very much like the way my two Island Packet yachts were laid up. I have seen the plug that was bored to fit the depth transponder-over 30mm thick. Tri radial rovings hand laid up makes a sound boat. Other quality vessels in GRP, think Nauticat, Najad, HR, Swan, Cabo Rico, Malo, Sweden Yachts etc.-all good strong vessels.

On the subject of deck leaks, my 16 year old, several Atlantic crossing-not by me-IP 350 had a leaky portlight-stripped threads through overtightening-easily rectified, and a leak through a stantion base after a mooring incident in high winds-it got bent and tweaked the base, bending the mounting screws. Not such an easy fix as the bent screws were reluctant to revolve and were fastened into a glassed in aluminium base plate. I drilled the heads off and used a new pair of vice grips on the protruding ends to tweak them straighter and then remove and replace them after resealing.

My ex-pat mate who lives on Whidby Island has a Flicka, cracking boat. Did Pacific Seacraft make them?

Merry Christmas Brent, and a happy and successful new year.
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30mm glass is heavier than 3/16th steel, and far more expensive.
Sounds like bolts tapped into aluminium will be an ongoing corrosion problem, seizing bolts in. Use lots of never seize on them.That much stainless per stanchion, is not a huge expense.
Solid top rails drastically reduce the movement of stanchion bases , and potential for leaks there.
Back then, they used proper metal thru hulls, instead of plastic .
 
oz-1 said:
HI Rotrax and Brent, hoping you are both keeping well. Pacific Seacraft did buid some of the Flickas, and their finished boats looked really nice, but did cost a lot. They went out of business and i think someone in South Africa bought the moulds. Brent, the Bruce Roberts 281 was 28 feet loa and it was quite beamy at 9feet 8 inches maximum beam. My two brothers and their families, who live in Surrey B.C. and 100 Mile House, tell me that a lot has changed in B.C. and not all for the good. My first job was in Vancouver working for B.C. Marine just off the 2nd narrows bridge. i was working on the interior fitting out of a Dome Petroleum ship, the Broderick. What really surprised me was how many young women were working as welders on the ship! They were great workers and really strong.
Wishing everyone a peaceful, enjoyable sailing 2019.
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I have encouraged a lot of young women to go into the trades, and it has worked out well for them .Employers love the work they do, very conciensious. They are very different from when I was young. Far more are cruising in their own boats.
A wonderful change . I had nothing in common with them back then, but lots in common with them now.Nice to have them around, to pass on to what I have learned, in decades of cruising, building, and living aboard, and seeing the benefits for them.
Things have changed for the worse if you want to live in suburbia, but rural anchorages are still paradise here. No place on the planet I would rather be now.

A friend bought a Crealock 37, built like a tank. After 5 years of cruising in her ,she visited the shop, where they were built, and was horrified at how much they had reduced scantlings and hull thickness. When she asked if they were worried about safety ,they said "Our only concern is the bottom line, profit, not safety."
Confirms my posts that most commercially built for mass production, boats and gear, is nowhere near as good as you can build for yourself. Confirms they go out of business, if they try to do things properly.
Expect those who commercially build and sell such boats and gear, to go on the attack.
What else should one expect!
Says nothing about the actual quality of the boats and gear, just their numbers, money, and motivation.
 
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sarabande said:
Please list your perceptions of the pros and cons of steel and reinforced nylon through hulls.
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I am no advocate of steel thru hulls, never have been.
Welded in stainless type 316 sch 40 half pipe nipples have worked with zero problems for me, for over 40 years.
In the mid 70s I was moored off A&G Price ship yard in Auckland .The foreman there said they tried every type of thru hull they could come up with, and nothing worked as well as stainless welded in.
It lets you run your thru hull at any angle to the hull, unlike the 90 degrees standard thru hulls require, saving you a lot of space. There is no way shifting heavy gear in a storm can shear them off, as it can with plastic thru hulls .
There is no metal sandwiched between the flanges and nut , which can be hidden problem with standard thru hulls . Welding them in eliminates dependence on bedding compound. There's no better bedding compound than welding.
On metal boat society, someone pointed out that sliding along a rock, container, or log can shear the outside flange off a standard plastic thru hull, leaving 2 inch holes in your hull ,which could not happen with welded in stainless thru hulls , especially with them being flush.
I once slapped a UV damaged plastic thru hull off a boat with my hand, leaving a big hole in the hull.
I once counted 38 plastic thru hulls along the waterline of a 50 ft Beneteau, very subject to UV damage and slicing off by rocks or floating debris collisions.
With SS type 316 ball valves on, mine have given me zero problems in decades of cruising, requiring zero maintenance.
There is no way any plastic thru hull can be as strong as welded in stainless, regardless of reinforcing, especially when it comes to bedding or stripping threads.
On one, site where I was banned for making such posts, they are singing the praises of white delrin thru hulls on steel boats ,with zero reinforcing
 
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Rogershaw said:
Only 24 degrees C, In the wildes of Africa its going to be 34 degrees C and I may go for a swim the the thunder storms stay away.
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In Canada we have a tradition of the polar bear swim ,on new years day. Mobs jump into the frigid waters around here .I have done it several times, but only in Mexico , Tonga , New Zealand , Tahiti, Fanning Island , never in BC.
 
rotrax said:
I have to agree-MIG is good option. I would prefer arc or stick welding for boat building or repair myself, if I ever decided to build one. Which is very unlikely at my time of life.

Now First Mate and I are retired we are too busy having a good time...………………

.
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On one boat I built in a sheet metal shop, the owner had plenty of mig machines.With their short leads, and the hull and decks going together so quickly, having to constantly move the machines around became a big draw on time.
So we abandoned the mig ,and put a gas driven stick welder outside,, with long leads, for putting the shell together. One the shell was together his welder used the mig for the final welding.
 
NormanS said:
A little bit of slag inclusion, or a lack of total penetration, is not going to make a huge difference to a steel hull, but would be completely unacceptable for any high pressure work. You are conflating cabinet making, with basic joinery. When you say a "failed" weld, do you mean something that falls apart, or something that fails an X-ray test? I ask, because though not a welder, I have done quite a lot of basic stick welding, including building a 35ft steel yacht. None of my welds have "failed", but many of them would probably not pass a professional test. What many forget is that intermittent stitch welds would be perfectly strong enough to hold the boat together, (think of wooden boats with nails or rivets). The seams only have to be completely welded because that is the cheapest and most convenient way to keep the water out. The alternative would involve caulking.
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Right on ! Well said!
My points exactly!
 
bbg said:
Brent, you have made it clear over and over again that a rust bucket is the right kind of boat for you. No money and poor navigation / pilotage makes rust the right choice. For you.

But most people who want to cruise long distance can afford something better, and they are competent enough not to end up on a reef every time they make landfall. So GRP is the best material. For them.

You shouldn't think that everyone is as incompetent a sailor as you, or that earning even a modest living is all that unusual. Don't judge others by your own inadequacies. GRP beats a rust bucket 999 times out of 1000 - at least - but not for you.
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You make it perfectly clear that a fragile pox bucket is perfect for you ,You shouldn't think that everyone is as completely infallible as you, or has your amazing ability to see awash containers or logs in pea soup fog, or on a moonless night, while laying in your bunk, or has your ability to detect surfacing whales in the night, even before they reach the surface, or see uncharted reefs which no one else has found yet.
Must be true!
bbg( anonymous) says so!
 
john_morris_uk said:
Its been shown on here that not only are GRP boats extremely strong and don't normally sink when in a collision, but the number of boats that actually sink is vanishingly small and statistically insignificant.
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Is this belief in infallibility of plastic why you advocate giving up so much cruising time to pay for liferafts?
If you thought the likelihood of problems was as insignificant as you claim, then you wouldn't be so obsessed with the need for a liferaft, if you really believed your own posts.
 
Brent Swain said:
Is this belief in infallibility of plastic why you advocate giving up so much cruising time to pay for liferafts?
If you thought the likelihood of problems was as insignificant as you claim, then you wouldn't be so obsessed with the need for a liferaft, if you really believed your own posts.
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There’s no logic to that post.

I’ve carried a liferaft on all the steel boats I’ve sailed or skippered as well as all the GRP and wooden and Ferrocement boats I’ve sailed. Having a steel hull doesn’t eliminate the possibility of sinking and there are other reasons why you might be forced to abandon. (Eg fire)
 
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Brent-there are two types of safety, primary safety and secondary safety. Primary safety is having a good strong seaworthy vessel, of whatever material, and the means to navigate and steer it in relative comfort.

Secondary safety is for when it goes tits up. A liferaft, EPIRB, lifejackets, safety harness's and flares are needed for this.

Unless you think differently, prudent sailors carry this gear.

Hopefully, it is never used...……………………………...
 
I can’t believe that any offshore sailor would have such a cavalier attitude to safety as to complete ignore the recommendations of SOLAS.

In extremis, the builders of Titanic thought her unsinkable and she did not carry liferaft capacity matched to passenger numbers. As a result many perished, RIP.

Any disaster at sea is a tragedy but in our developed society we have the ability, MAIB in the U.K., to learn and implement future improvements. The Ostrich buried its head in the sand and became extinct as a result. Darwin had a view on this, too.
 
davidjackson said:
I can’t believe that any offshore sailor would have such a cavalier attitude to safety as to complete ignore the recommendations of SOLAS.

In extremis, the builders of Titanic thought her unsinkable and she did not carry liferaft capacity matched to passenger numbers. As a result many perished, RIP.

Any disaster at sea is a tragedy but in our developed society we have the ability, MAIB in the U.K., to learn and implement future improvements. The Ostrich buried its head in the sand and became extinct as a result. Darwin had a view on this, too.
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I think you will find that Ostriches are alive and well, and definitely not extinct. :rolleyes:
 
Brent Swain said:
Is this belief in infallibility of plastic why you advocate giving up so much cruising time to pay for liferafts?
If you thought the likelihood of problems was as insignificant as you claim, then you wouldn't be so obsessed with the need for a liferaft, if you really believed your own posts.
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I think most of the readers and contributors of this thread are fully aware of who is suffering from obsession Brent.
 
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