Ferro Cement Hulls ?

[NoTies]

One perspective I haven't seen mentioned in all of this is the "heart & soul" factor of building a boat yourself. Cue Frank Sinatra singing "My Way". Ferro may be time consuming but with some competent help with the plastering it seems to be within the realms of an amatuer to build.
I chose not to include ferro in my options for a first boat purchase because I wanted good resale value a year or 2 down the track when we have established exactly what we want & need in a boat. I will however be open to a good quality used ferro in the future for the "more boat per buck" factor amongst other things.

It is interesting the passion on both sides that conversations on ferro boats bring out. I have seen differnt forms of fiberglass, wod, composite, steel and aluminum discussed on the forum, but none have had the response that the numerous threads on ferro have. I guess ferro boats are either loved or loathed, but no inbetween.

[CaptainK]

I guess ferro boats are either loved or loathed, but no inbetween.

Exactly Kai. You answered alot about this topic in one sentence!!

[Alan Wheeler]

Hmmmmm, I think it's because they tend to get Loathed more than any other type, that the few people that have FC or believe in FC, tend to priase them more towards the other end of the spectrum.
I think it is important to maintain perspective from bothsides. I encourage Jeffs comments, as I have said, it brings about good discussion.
I think we all agree, there are good points and bad points on any material a boat is built from and it is good to talk about all the apsects of building a boat in what ever material. Each material has it's own positive strengths along with negative ones.

Unfair for me to put words Jeff's mouth but if I may suggest the point of view that Jeff maybe coming from. I would presume Jeff is looking at boat design from a present day, modern design/build point of view. Fast, lightweight, easy to handle and strong stength to weight ratio. FC would be a poor choice for any of that.
OK, so my side of the fence. I like the older style boat. Character. A crusier. I don't care about weight. Infact I like that "ship" feel. I have no interest in racing my boat. Not to say I don't like racing, but for Dawn and I, it is all about relaxing and exploring and seeing nature. The romance of it all. So the style of boat kinda blends into that. My boat does not have a clipper bow, but I would have loved one. Full Keel big volume. You don't get those designs in the modern design world today so much. Yes there are a couple out there, but mate, they are way out of my dream budget range, let alone an affordable range.
But there are many of us that still want that "character" boat and if someone wants to build one, then the choice of materials and the ability for an amature to build in them become, IMO, limited. It takes a lot of skill and money to build a traditional hull in timber today. Not impossible, but harder than FC. Steel is a good choice and is why it tends to be the most common. But there are also some major ongoing maintenance issues with steel. Plus as I have said earlier, I have seen some steel hulls I would never want to go to sea in. I could never trust the welding on at least two I have seen built. Yes it's hard to survey a FC hull for defects, but how the heck do you know if a weld is made properly. I have seen stuff that looked like bird crap(honest) and faired over beautifully. The finished article looked majic. The welds were still crap and the new owner will never know.
Trying to build a traditonal style hull in GRP for an amature is next to impossible, both from equipment required, expertise and cost.
So FC becomes an achievable and in many aspects, an affordable medium to build a boat with. Especially by an amature in a backyard. Remember, issues of buildings and equipment come into the overall budget. FC requires little of either and the fact that a building not being required to house the project, makes a big difference to anyones budget.
Weight to strength arguments from Jeffs point of view are valid arguments. But from my point of view when weight isn't an issue, only solid steel is stronger and even then, in some instances, FC can be stronger than. Plus FC is lighter than steel and you have none of the issues you get with steel. Plus you have to admit, hard chined flat plate steel boats look butt ugly (sorry) and round hulls in steel are next to impossible for an amature to economicaly produce.
Then there are a whole lot of interior aspects of FC that can make it a pleasure to live in. I have so many people make comments about how quite, how fresh the interior feels and smells and that it doesn't move around like a cork when they step onboard. OK, maybe that's a negative with weight, but it is fantastic for the many I get that are scared of the boat moving and heeling etc etc.
OK,I'm done.

[Whiptail]

Hey Mudnut, with regards to Wilf O'Kell - he used to be in Bundaberg (may still be!) and designed and built a lot of ferro boats in the 70's and 80's. I remember as a young tacker going with my father to help plaster a hull for him, being research for the schooner the old man would later build. Wilf even came down with his team for the plastering of ours, no doubt encouraged by the keg on the verandah afterwards. We had the hull done in one shot and all in daylight hours and what a party that night! Pity I was only about 10.
As for the strength of ferro - our schooner was left on a mooring in Nelson Bay for a couple of months, and on return to Mooloolaba we slipped her for maintenance, finding a patch of gouges below the waterline. After a few phone calls the marina finally admitted that the mooring line had busted in a 40 knot blow and the old girl had ended up on the rocks, only discovered the next morning after bumping on the chop against the rocks for half the night. They just fixed the line and tied her back up hoping we wouldn't notice. The end result was a few cosmetic gouges that didn't expose any metal, so a bit of filler and some paint was all she needed.

[mudnut]

So Whiptail where are ya diggs now.If ya been looking at Yachthub or boatpoint lately you would have seen a few Wilf O'kell boats on the market at some yummy price's,not to mention,a few Hartley's as well.Good ta see more OZZies,in OZ taken place on the forum.Ken Walker is another designer and builder that springs up a few times but I can not seem to get anything of him on the net"Im not to flash with a computer" Also Len Hedges.Hey if ya can help out in reaserching them I'd sure owe ya one.ARH,Nelson bay,A girl named Kim,lived with her for a while in Sydney,True blue Ozzie babe,It don't get much better than that.Mudnut.

[AuzzieM]

I own / livaboard & sail a Hartley ferro 34 ft yacht....I love it, the previous owner sailed it with his wife in northern Queensland Australia for 20 years and survived 4 cyclones..the hull is in very good order, tough boats.....better than the wooden cabin.
In a couple of years I am looking for a larger ferro (40 to 45 ft)
There were a lot of ferro yachts that were poorly constructed in the 70s, however, they are sunk or otherwise gone by now.
Anything constructed 30 years ago and still looking good is going to be around for many years yet
Good luck with your purchase

[fishingbobber]

It has been noticed lately that in many cement land structures built near the water and some inland , have the internal rebar rusting. Rusting to the extent that these bridges and such need replacing. The industry has started to use stainless rebar. Also the guy doing that 1000 days at sea, his boat is made of rebar,"ferralite"(in place of sand my best guess) talc, resin, and a small amount of fiberglass fibers in the mix. One of the reasons I mention this is that when I Googled ferailte I came across a guy, the son of Samson I belive,who had his "ferrocement" boat for sale. He called the boat ferrocement even though the const. was stainless rebar, ferralite, and some type of resin/mortar, with fiberglass over it. The boat was built a while back. Now if I had a boat like that I wouldnt call it FC, unless my last name was Samson. Also makes you wonder what he knew to make him use those materials back then. Bob stainless rebar - Google Search

[Alan Wheeler]

There is no advantage in using SST in FC biulding. But before I go further, I would like to address one point you have made and a point often mistakenly made by the naysayers of FC. FC is not concreate as in the concreate bridges and paths and whatever are made from. So you can never ever compare the two. They are chalk and cheese.
Ferralight is another that is far removed from FC. Once again, comparing the two is like comparing Epoxy with Polyester resins. They may both start as a lquid and then turn solid, but there the similarity ends.
OK, SST was played around with at one point. But it gained no improvement over plain steel. In fact, there was two negatives. The makor one being cost. The second not so bad but it did not "bind" well with the Cement. It was found that allowing the steel matrix to weather and rust just slightly (not talking scale here, just light rust) the cement chemicaly reacted with the rust and it provided a bond between Cement and steel. I still find it fasinating when ever I see a repair done and the cement is broken away for the first time for the repair. The steel matrix looks shiney and new.

[KIWI]

I have heard people say that FC boats are slow, "NOT SO" If they are well built they not only look good but are bloody fast,

On our weekly club races I race on a Mick Elms 36ft FG boat, On a 2 hour race we are handicapped by 20 minutes we are the last to leave in our division and yes we are the fastest boat in our division so they handicap the **** out of us , But it's fun

Just before Xmas some boats from Nelson joined in one of our races, One particular boat 35-38ft stuck with us Nealy all the to the finish it was fast and looked good the way it went through the water and I think what blew us all away was we were told it was a FC boat.

This FC boat pulled up along side the club house after the racing had finished and looking at close up I still had my doubts that it was really FC, It made me think twice about FC boats in general, There some good ones around

Graham

[cooper]

...Ive said it before and I will say it again...the hull on my ferro is 3/8 th inch thick if light displacement means quick well......

[Alan Wheeler]

Yes we have several FC boats over our side that you have to tap the hull with your finger to work out if it really is FC or glass.

[KIWI]

Alan , I race on "Simply Red" come over and say hello on tuesday night

Graham

[Alan Wheeler]

I know that boat. Who owns her now??
We are heading out Tuesday evening with the plan of coming around the top on Wednesday to meet up with Seafox. We will be around QC side till about Sunday. So if you get out during Wednesday or the Weekend, give us a call on VHF and we could meet up.

[Alan Wheeler]

the hull on my ferro is 3/8 th inch thick

That was the hardest part Amatures had to reckon with when building. They made two mistakes. Either they couldn't keep the plaster thin enough due to not having the experiance of plastering, or they purposely made the plaster too thick becuase they had the wrong notion that the plaster was what gave the hull strength. Quite easy to spot those hulls if one still exists. They simply don't sit right in the water. They don't float to the correct lines. If the hull was built spot on, she should float to the line that the designer intended. I don't know about other makes, but Hartely supplied the measurements to scribe onto the hull that the boat should float to.