Steel Boat Building Price and Advise?

[SimonV]

I built my first steel sailboat in the 80's. It was a lot of hard work and to be honest I have no idea how much I spent, apart from the major items. I was always forking out for something or other. It will consume your life, if you make it to the end of the build you will have a boat you can be proud of, that is IF you finish it. Just take a walk around the yards and take heed of all the unfinished rusting hulls that are out there.

[gjordan]

The steel boat on Ebay that I mentioned in post 24 is already gone. The buy it now price was very good and I suspect someone got a good deal. I wonder if it was a member of CF that bought it? ____Grant.

[Cormorant]

Is this the one? (I searched EBay's "completed listings.")

1990 44' Bruce Roberts Sailboat Steel Hull "NO RESERVE" in Sailboats | eBay Motors

Dang -- someone does seem to have gotten a deal.

[gjordan]

Cormorant, Yes that is the boat i refered to. It is hard to believe it went for that price. There was still a lot of interior work to do, but the boat sold for less than the rig was worth. Someone did very well. The early bird gets the worm!!!!_______Grant.

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by Cormorant

Is this the one? (I searched EBay's "completed listings.")

1990 44' Bruce Roberts Sailboat Steel Hull "NO RESERVE" in Sailboats | eBay Motors

Dang -- someone does seem to have gotten a deal.

I've definitely seen worse and if the welding and galvanizing was decent, you could (eventually) make a decent cruiser out of that.

It looks pretty severely neglected, however. I suspect "Dad got too old to finish it".

[boatman61]

Some ideas for hulls... chine I'm afraid...
oh... and the Ebbtide does sail well... and the plans are cheep

Icelander 43 archive details

Alan Pape Ebbtide 36 archive details - Yachtsnet Ltd. online UK yacht brokers - yacht brokerage and boat sales

[barnakiel]

If you are into aesthetics, get the plates rolled and build a rounded hull - these tend to look much better after some years of use.

I think the best advice is get in touch with owners cum builders of the boats you do like - they will share plenty of tricks and skills and I bet some will actually help out for the pure pleasure of building another one!

Avoid designs with too many unaccessible nooks and corners - that's where I can see my steel boat friends - a brush in their teeth and swearing.

b.

[gjordan]

The Radious chine boats were big in the 80s and were much easier to build than a true round bilge boat, yet looked almost as good. You had no compound curves other than the chine area, which was like a section of a banana. You could hardly tell the difference from a true round bilge boat. I wonder why Roberts and some of the other prolific steel boat designers didnt follow this trend? Any opinions?(what a stupid question to ask on CF). _____Grant.

[S/V Alchemy]

My boat, a 1988-built radius chine design:


My buddy's round chine steel boat, built in 1979:



There are good reasons for both. Radius chine is easier to fit tanks, in my view, and easier to rig jackstands.

[Andrew Troup]

Steel would have to be one of the quickest, easiest materials to build with, particularly if you just want to quickly throw together something that floats (see below, if this raises your hackles). The equipment is cheap, simple and easy to come by.

If alu wasn't so confounded tricky to weld, building in alu would be easier again, but it's certainly quicker and easier to cut, nice and clean to work with, and the welds run REALLY quick. The material is expensive, but not as much as people would think, (and of course a hull is just a small proportion of the cost of a boat) and if you shop around for long enough, the cost of even up-to-date alu welding plant (which is desirable) can be brought down to merely eye-watering.

It's well worth having all the frames, and stringers if applicable, routed from plate from faired CAD files, with integral 'run-on' and 'runoff' pads at any butts, which you can trim off later with a meataxe. Lots of such tricks worth canvassing before you start.

Steel can build a beautiful hull, too, if you take the time

Alu is a bit easier to shape: you can wheel compound curve into plates with a relatively simple piece of equipment. Anyone capable of building a big steel boat, who knows someone with a big lathe, could build this themselves.

If the wheeling machine is somewhat more strongly built, last para applies equally to steel construction. Steel is also amenable to heat-shrinking, to introduce shape or correct excessively deep localised shape, which alu is not.

The killer with steel is not building, in my opinion, it's maintenance.

If you're the sort of person who hates gardening because of weeds, and resents mowing lawns, you might not enjoy owning a steel boat.

(Work which 'won't stay done' syndrome)

[Andrew Troup]

Originally Posted by S/V Alchemy

My boat, a 1988-built radius chine design:


My buddy's round chine steel boat, built in 1979:



There are good reasons for both. Radius chine is easier to fit tanks, in my view, and easier to rig jackstands.

Hmmm

Alchemy. Just a point of terminology, to avoid confusion:

A number of established metal boat designers, including Bruce Roberts, Michael Kasten and Dudley Dix refer to what you're calling "round chine" as "radius-chine".

You seem to apply the latter term to any conventional chined hull where the exposed profile of the chine bars exhibits a (small) radius. Could be solid round bar, hollow pipe, or segment of pipe. Or other....

I've not come across your definitions, as far as I can recall ...

Can anyone else comment on which usage is more common, and/or established, in specified communities of interest they're familiar with?

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Andrew Troup

(Work which 'won't stay done' syndrome)

Andrew, that's the best description of steel boat maintenance that I've ever seen!

Cheers,

Jim

[gjordan]

Alchemys hull looks like a pretty standard multichine build, not a radius chine. In a radius chine boat the center area of plate would be rolled to a compound curve. It is much easier than doing the whole hull from compound curves, yet looks almost as good. Maybe metal boat building terminology has changed in the 30 years since I had a radius chine boat designed (never did build it). ____Grant.

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by Andrew Troup

Hmmm

Alchemy. Just a point of terminology, to avoid confusion:

A number of established metal boat designers, including Bruce Roberts, Michael Kasten and Dudley Dix refer to what you're calling "round chine" as "radius-chine".

You seem to apply the latter term to any conventional chined hull where the exposed profile of the chine bars exhibits a (small) radius. Could be solid round bar, hollow pipe, or segment of pipe. Or other....

I've not come across your definitions, as far as I can recall ...

Can anyone else comment on which usage is more common, and/or established, in specified communities of interest they're familiar with?

In order of descending complexity of build:

Round chine is essentially no chine, just compound curves, as far as I've heard. Looks most like a typical fibreglass boat.

Radius chine is when the chines themselves are curved and the plates themselves are cut to match. The angles are softened thereby. The entire waterline chine of my boat is a long curve, for instance, chined into another long, curved plate.

Hard chine is flatter sections and more obvious hard angles. Boats like some of the Roberts designs or the old Thunderbird plywood homebuilt are hard chine.

I'm willing to be corrected on this, but that's how it's been explained to me.

[Amino]

Originally Posted by Kinkajou

good day everyone.

Im planning (maybe) to built my own sailboat....

Long story short, I want to retire in something around 40 ft long....only issue, the boats I can affort are not what I need... I want to stay around 45 000$ pricerange and only need a boat to liveaboard and sail too obviously...

req -sleep only 2, maybee 2 on the table too...
-complete head and shower
-refrigeration and complete oven
-water maker
-lots of storage....

I have full access to a steel\machine shop, welding, CNC, punch press, plasma cutter, torches, overhead crane.....but not to fold\shape metal...is it possible to have a rounded look that does not look like atank or an sea container?
If yes, how much time should I expect to finish the project??? and how much total....

is it doable or should I purchace a used boat and take it apart???

Hey

But why build a hull when you can get something cheaper. Ok it's not steel, but something like that 1985 Dobroth 42 Sail New and Used Boats for Sale - www.yachtworld.co.uk Build the deck for liveaboard or pilotehouse, whatever you want, its fiberglass. Shorten the keel and add a bulb to it(of course calculate the right weight).

Sorry for bad English, it's not my native language