Ok so this is to do with boats but I’m interested in hearing if anyone here has ever used this to build a boat or had owned one made of this.

Cheers.

Is it a comon material for building boats? Sounds a bit heavy! Fiber glass would be better.

Ultimately it depends on what you want the boat for, we are currently on our 3rd Ferrocement yacht and its fantastic in many ways but deffo not light.
All 3 of our yachts have been solid ocean cruisers not racers, when you drop off the top of a big swell into the trough you can really feel the difference, a GRP boat will slam down and shake like hell, a Ferro hull will just push through the wave more as its so solid and heavy. it also has very good insulation properties, My Dad currently lives aboad his and spends each winter in the Bahamas, when he gets too hot he just goes below and its nice and cool, not like a GRP hulled boat.
There are a couple of downsides.
The mixture of chemicals and additives used to make the Ferro tend to slowly leach out and it causes loads of problems with the paints and antifoulings flaking off, the only sure fire way to stop this is with a hefty dose of epoxy over the entire hull which is quite costly.
The other problem is that if you are building yourself then you need to get a VERY good team of Ferro plasterers in to finish it off. A poorly finished Ferro boat looks terrible but a very well finished Ferro boat looks so good that people don't believe its Ferro so they tend to have a poor reputation.
Overall i personally feel that the advantages far outway the negative points as long as you don't mind the extra wieght.
What sort of boat are you looking at buying/building?

Thanks Scotty, very helpful

I was considering a large sail boat after only recently reading something on it. I had heard of the material but TBH initially considered it a crazy thing to use but after working on a GRP boat and previous wooden hulls are being swayed by the concrete hulls ease and cheapness. I’m also very good at plastering having done several houses. One question is once you have started applying the concrete do you have to keep going till its all down or can it be done in stages?

Cheers.



[Edited on 26/6/08 by Mr Whippy]

Have you thought about using concrete?


And no, im not joking

quote:

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Originally posted by tegwin
Have you thought about using concrete?


And no, im not joking

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once you get to the plastering stage then it all has to be done in one hit which is why you need a team really, also you have to be aware that with a house you are plastering a flat wall/ ceiling etc but with a boat there is not a single flat area, its all curves, it is difficult.
if you like I could probably find details of the team we used, they go all over the country.
Something else to consider as well is having the deck done in Ferro at the same time, dads latest yacht has a Ferro deck and it makes the whole thing incredibly strong, the deckhouse is timber framed with plywood covering and finished off with a layer of GRP.
Dad has been sailing her for nearly 20 years now, took her over to the other side of the pond, winters in the Bahamas and goes up to Nova scotia in the summer, he has taken her down as far as Venezuela.
She is a 36 foot gaff Ketch built in the traditional american styling, clipper bow, wide beam and transom with a shallow draft, he would never build a boat with anything other than Ferro.

great that’s a big help.

Perhaps I will first do a small craft first, seeing it is so cheap, maybe a small motor boat just to get a feel for what they are like, certainly sounds very promising.

Thanks

Ferro is a great material for yachts as stated earlier but there are practical downsides.

1 - It takes as much work or more to build a ferro yacht and costs nearly the same as any other material.
2 - the resale value compared to any other similar yacht is most probably much lower so the overall cost is higher.

Steel is a much better material for an amatuer built cruising boat:

1 - a steel hull properly painted and insulated with spray on foam gives all the advantages of ferro re insulation, and you can make it as seakindly (different to seaworthy) by choosing the right design but is easier and quicker to build anda lot more foolproof and possibly cheaper and is stronger - they have survived being T-boned by ships dented in to centre line but still afloat.
2 - Steel boats fit in better with the Locost type - monocoque steel chassis
3 - Steel boats will generally have a better resale value so have lower lifetime costs.
5. steel boats will survive running up on a reef with a bit of luck

There must be a reason why they don't make ferro cement Locosts

[Edited on 26/6/08 by Ivan]

I have noted some companys that sell DIY weld up kits for everything from small boats to huge crazy monster cruisers. Precut and formed panels that arive in containers that you then just weld up but they are all quite expencive.

My great uncal robert (grandads brother) build a ferrocement yacht.
- Has has been mentioned, one of the great advanatages of it over GRP is the noise in the hull. Ive never really experenced it myself, but i can certainly see that it could be bloody loud in a GRP boat on a swell.

As people have said also, the plastering has to be dead right. Smooth in all dimentions, all done at once, and fully wet the steel.

The only real problem he had was the mounting for the hydraulic rudder began to fracture off on its second outing, something that once reengineered never reoccured.

That and having sold the boat the following owners sank it as an insurence job soon after.



Daniel