Quote:
Originally Posted by sailaway21
There is in fact a huge difference in longevity of steel hulls in fresh versus salt water. Many people wonder at how "old fashioned" some of the ore boats on the Great Lakes look. They look that way because they are old-fashioned with many of the hulls approaching 75-100 years old. (that's not a misprint) The only thing that has done many of them in is the trend towards larger ships.
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I would beg to differ... The great lakes is not exactly 'fresh water' it is brackish... The difference between old steel and new steel - is that todays engineers desire the smallest weight to have more buoyancy in their 'scientific' designs which comes at a cost in terms of selecting whatever grade of steel - 100 years ago - big and heavy was beautiful (and according to the personals on Craigslist - its making a comeback)...as it was equated to 'indestructible' (ie titanic) and metallurgy was something of new era... Imagine if modern epoxy was invented 150 or 300 years ago - huge wooden ships - not steel would of become the norm for commercial vessels...
One also has to consider the upkeep of vessels in pre-today eras. Now the goal is to minimize the amount of upkeep. In the earlier days - a Captains pride was the vessel. So upkeep in terms of painting, and the likes was carried out more fastidiously resulting in a greater lifespan of the vessel.
The are lots of factors that end up being considered but 1900 era vessels were up kept to a more stringent maritime tradition and had thicker steel... Today light and minimum upkeep when even it is admitted in scientific circles - metallurgy is not a exact science and maritime standards have actually been reduced to expected lifespans and the cost of mininal labor upkeep and etc....