Sunken Ferro Boat - Guernsey

michael_w said:
Look at the materials.

Ferro cement is a crystaline structure so it cannot cope with any movement. it just spalls off the wire armature. Every other boat building material, GRP, wood, metal, elastoplast, cardboard etc has a laminar structure so it can cope with a certain amount of flexing.
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at least two decades ago I scrapped an 18 footer -

I was given it and the trailer was salvagable, I removed all the fittings, spars, etc

kept all the halyards, still use one of the sails

when it came to cutting up the hull to take to the dump I killed a l;ot of jigsaw blades. I tried bending cut out pannels to break them

bloody nora they would take one heck of a bend, and then snap back into shape

GRP it is one amazing material

we are very lucky blokes top be able to sail boats made out of it

D
 
>If you hit anything hard enough, it matters very little what your boat is made of.

According to Kiwi survey of boats passing through 98% of metal boats that hit a reef get off it. They didn't have a survey for GRP boats because there was no sample but I bet they wouldn't get off. That's why we bought a steel boat we reckoned if you sail for long enough you will hit something or something will hit you. We got hit twice on one occasion a boat boy approached our beam in a heavy pirogue to take us to customs and immigration. He hit the boat at full speed he couldn't get it out of gear. Next day I filled and painted the large chip but it would have holed a GRP boat and destroyed any furniture/cuboard behind it which we have seen.
 
KellysEye said:
>If you hit anything hard enough, it matters very little what your boat is made of.

According to Kiwi survey of boats passing through 98% of metal boats that hit a reef get off it. They didn't have a survey for GRP boats because there was no sample but I bet they wouldn't get off. That's why we bought a steel boat we reckoned if you sail for long enough you will hit something or something will hit you. We got hit twice on one occasion a boat boy approached our beam in a heavy pirogue to take us to customs and immigration. He hit the boat at full speed he couldn't get it out of gear. Next day I filled and painted the large chip but it would have holed a GRP boat and destroyed any furniture/cuboard behind it which we have seen.
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Tanker in collision with a cruise ship

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OTOH
A few knackered GRP boats have the keels fall off.
Plenty of strong old GRP boats around.
Plenty of old steel boats rusted to scrap.
You pays yer money....

But best avoid them rocks.
 
Like every thing else, Ferro Cement hulls are what they are. There is little point is stating that they are all rubbish or that they are all strong. It takes a lot of time to build a ferro hull.
The cost savings are in time and labour not in fit out. I you want a one off, then Ferro is probably the most cost effective means of producing it. Try for a one off GRP or even steel and the cost will make your eyes water.
However for a one off, yes, Ferro makes sense.
If the build is done correctly the Ferro hull will flex, it will resist being holed and it is easy to fix once it has been holed.
Insurance is not difficult to obtain (Yachtmaster Insurance offer a good policy with Lloyds of London).
There are also many instances of Ferro boats being thrown on to reefs and then having the hole patched between tides, or of the subsequent damage being so light that a lick of paint and the job is done (Mike Peyton had his vessel Touchstone smashed into a concrete quay that would have sunk a GRP hull, Mike says that he was at sea later the same day), In "Sieze the Day" by Shirley Billing, their Ferro ketch Clypius (Endurance 35) was driven hard onto a reef in the Red Sea, the hull was holed, the damage was repaired on site with the vessel on her other side and the repair was still in place when I last saw the vessel 6 years ago.
My opinion is biased, our schooner is Ferro, professionally built, and very tough. Is she heavy, yes but she is meant to be (no point trying to build a light weight racing boat out of a material that by it's very nature needs to be beefy).
Get the right boat for the right reasons,
Ours is awesome, and we love her.

Simes
 
I always understood the big problem with ferro boats is not particularly the shattering bit, it's that the mesh armature prevents one from stuffing things like sailbags etc in the hole, to gain breathing time.
 
Seajet said:
I always understood the big problem with ferro boats is not particularly the shattering bit, it's that the mesh armature prevents one from stuffing things like sailbags etc in the hole, to gain breathing time.
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I thought it actually helped, if you are fothering the hole from the outside.
 
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