SailNet Community banner
  • SailNet is a forum community dedicated to Sailing enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about sailing, modifications, classifieds, troubleshooting, repairs, reviews, maintenance, and more!
Status
Not open for further replies.

Pros and cons of steel sailboats

909K views 5K replies 127 participants last post by  Faster 
#1 ·
I'm thinking about making the leap from fiberglass to steel for our next sailboat. We want to do some far flung cruising - maybe even circumnavigate. Our present boat is a 1977 Tartan 37 and while we love it - since we've had a child and possibly will have another one on the way it might get a bit small for a liveaboard situation.
This summer I drove a big, old steel tour boat around the finger lakes and started thinking that steel might be a good way to get my family around the big marble.
I've spent a week in the Caribbean on a glorious aluminium boat but have never sailed a steel one, so I have lots of questions about their performance as cruising boats?
What are some of the better designers to keep and eye out for?
How good are they in the hot climates?
Are there any extra dangers in lightning?
Thanks for any and all advice you can give.
 
#477 ·
So I've read this post through, and it seemed to start out well. It covered steel vs fiberflass, and eventually looped in aluminum. Even titanium was mentioned.

Then it devolved into a ridiculous something-or-other about BS's designs and claims and people picked teams and ganged up on one another.... offenses were made... people got banned, then it all came full circle, naval schooling class notes were passed out, and now I'm not sure what I'm left with.

So I'll summarize what I think I learned (since, yes, I'm one of the people interested in steel and was hoping to learn something). I hope y'all are nice when you correct me:

1: Every material has advantages and disadvantages in boatbuilding (not to make a distinction between boats or yachts).

2: Steel, like the others, requires it's own considerations respective to maintenance, construction abilities of it's owner, hull dynamics, etc. It's not the easiest thing to sort through for a hobby builder, but doable to a certain degree by a tenacious amateur (s.v. seeker comes to mind).

3: It's better suited for larger vessels than smaller ones. The benefits diminish the smaller the vessel (in general).

4. There's a rainbow-like variation to steel and it's welding options. One must choose wisely to make the most of the benefits outlined.

5: Building a hull from scratch is doable and likely the easiest part of the project. Finishing the rest of the vessel is the harder part... the quality of which is subject to the talent dedicated to the project.

6: Steel vs. fiberglass => Steel offers more strength, but greater weight. Compensating with more sail will only get you so far. Maintenance is different in steel, and is a matter of debate based on the level of perfection desired but for the purposes of discussion could be considered similar to fiberglass in terms of cost and effort for thumbnail purposes.

7: Steel vs. aluminum => Steel is heavier, aluminum doesn't require all the coatings (saving you $), but steel is cheaper... where do you want to spend your time and money. Aluminum needs special welding and environment. Strength of aluminum may not be comparable to steel, but may be more malleable which may offer other advantages during building and sailing. Aluminum also has a lot of variations so choosing an alloy should be done with care.

8: Building a boat for yourself and having one built for you are two very different exercises. Know which camp you're in and what kind of effort you're up for.

9: ......what am I missing....?

(and I'm really speaking in general terms here, we can muck in the quagmire of exceptions and specifications ad infinitum and it won't do most readers any good).

Thanks!
 
#480 ·
So I've read this post through, and it seemed to start out well. It covered steel vs fiberflass, and eventually looped in aluminum. Even titanium was mentioned.

Then it devolved into a ridiculous something-or-other about BS's designs and claims and people picked teams and ganged up on one another.... offenses were made... people got banned, then it all came full circle, naval schooling class notes were passed out, and now I'm not sure what I'm left with.

So I'll summarize what I think I learned (since, yes, I'm one of the people interested in steel and was hoping to learn something). I hope y'all are nice when you correct me:

1: Every material has advantages and disadvantages in boatbuilding (not to make a distinction between boats or yachts).

2: Steel, like the others, requires it's own considerations respective to maintenance, construction abilities of it's owner, hull dynamics, etc. It's not the easiest thing to sort through for a hobby builder, but doable to a certain degree by a tenacious amateur (s.v. seeker comes to mind).

3: It's better suited for larger vessels than smaller ones. The benefits diminish the smaller the vessel (in general).

4. There's a rainbow-like variation to steel and it's welding options. One must choose wisely to make the most of the benefits outlined.

5: Building a hull from scratch is doable and likely the easiest part of the project. Finishing the rest of the vessel is the harder part... the quality of which is subject to the talent dedicated to the project.

6: Steel vs. fiberglass => Steel offers more strength, but greater weight. Compensating with more sail will only get you so far. Maintenance is different in steel, and is a matter of debate based on the level of perfection desired but for the purposes of discussion could be considered similar to fiberglass in terms of cost and effort for thumbnail purposes.

7: Steel vs. aluminum => Steel is heavier, aluminum doesn't require all the coatings (saving you $), but steel is cheaper... where do you want to spend your time and money. Aluminum needs special welding and environment. Strength of aluminum may not be comparable to steel, but may be more malleable which may offer other advantages during building and sailing. Aluminum also has a lot of variations so choosing an alloy should be done with care.

8: Building a boat for yourself and having one built for you are two very different exercises. Know which camp you're in and what kind of effort you're up for.

9: ......what am I missing....?

(and I'm really speaking in general terms here, we can muck in the quagmire of exceptions and specifications ad infinitum and it won't do most readers any good).

Thanks!
Raz,

We can definitely agree that there are some great steel boats, some wonderful aluminum boats, some beautiful wooden boats, and some awesome fiberglass boats....however none of them are BS boats...

I love a beautiful sailboat, no matter what it is made out of, but I think that these are just about some of the most beautiful. I admit it may be that I am sentimental about the wooden boats, their lines, the simplicity of the design which is simple yet highly functional and the material speaks to me. I would love to have a great big aluminum sailboat with all the toys and goodies, but to be honest I would probably be just as pleased, possibly even more pleased, to own one of these. ( I would want to update the electronics, and probably the head on most of them, but hey every sailor wants to have the best in both of those places).

For your viewing pleasure....

 
#479 ·
I just received Brent's book in the mail. I have to say I'm really enjoying it. It feels like a I'm reading a historical piece from a different era. There was a time when with basic tools and a lot of work an ambitious man could make anything himself including a boat.
My dad built a few apartment houses by himself. Carpentry, cabinets, electrical site work every thing. They were small maybe 8 units all one floor and took maybe three years but he got it done.
I was apprenticed to a blacksmith when I was about 16. The guy was old, was a farrier as a young man. Lived through the change from horses to cars.
I made all the hinges and door handles for my dads house with his help.
The point was is that George could make just about anything metal in his forge.

Bret is from the same mindset. He has directions in his book on how to make an anchor windless, bilge pump, roller fuller and composting head among other ideas.

I agree that Bob Perry and Bret are never going to compete for a customer.

The average sailnet member is just not likely to be willing to use many of Bret's ideas on there glass boats or build a steel boat of his design.

I have what I think might be a novel reason why many sailnet members may want to buy his book and maybe even have it on board or scanned in and downloaded to their ipad if they can't spare the space.

If you are cruising in some remote area and break something the chances are high that with Bret's methods you could fix your boat with local help and materials and get on your way.

A few weeks saved, or maybe months depending on how the seasons fall would be worth the cover price and I found it a fun read in it's own right.

If you have any questions ask away.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jgbrown
#484 ·
Not sure what this math excersize is trying to prove. There are a lot of variables with groundings and collisions. I'll sit and wait until the variables are included if we are going to be realstic here. I think I'll have a long wait. We know steel is strong. But if you are just having fun with numbers carry on. I'm enjoying the back and forth.
 
#485 ·
Looksd like the same numbers that show a shoal draft lead is better than a deep draft iron from a righting movement issue, or a fin is not as good as a full at times. There is another thread with similar numbers that don't always include EVERY possible issues with in a certain fact. Seen it on other forums too, where some take numbers one way, make it work for them, but when someone shows that one should also include this variable in the numbers, they go haywire.

LOTS of that going on in this thread now.

Marty
 
#486 ·
"Looksd like the same numbers that show a shoal draft lead is better than a deep draft iron from a righting movement issue, or a fin is not as good as a full at times."

Lots of variables there Marty. I would not say either of those things without some qualifiers. Remember that stability is about more than just the ballast. You would have to do the comparison fairly using the same hull for each type of keel and ballast material. But then it wouldn't be very realistic.
 
#488 ·
Bob,
I would agree with you on that, ie where one has to have the same hull etc. BUT< one still sees folks trying to do numbers with out certain elements in the total equation, and things do not add up as they should in the end, to get to a point one wants to see vs how it will REALLY be!

marty
 
#492 ·
Although we never actually ran the numbers the redesign of Wolf's boat began as an effort to show how wetted surface could be reduced and the vertical center of gravity lowered without changing the basic hull shape of the boat. Then things got out of hand......oh well. ..No matter what else anyone sez, I know I had a good time!

Jeff,
From the hook on Synergy listening to a shore side band play Mustang Sally right after In The Midnight Hour. Must be thier Wilson Pickett set.
 
#489 ·
Marty:
At some stage you have to make the numbers relevant to your design task. If you can't do that you are just playing with yourself.

But lots of people like numbers challenges for numbers sake and I can understand the fun of the mathematical quest and challenge. But after hours of discussion I don't want to look at a number and say, "Fine, now what?"

I almost always start a calculation with a guess. My guesses are pretty darn close and if my caluation is not close to my guess I have to look hard at the calculation. I've had a lot of practice guessing (see the "Mr. Perry" thread on the General Interest forum).
 
#490 ·
Bob,

While I do not know boat numbers etc, I do understand to a degree other numbers, Yes, doing numbers to do numbers is not a good thing. On the other hand, to know the correct numbers for the task at hand.....that is good to know, or understand.

I had to build a block wall for a client a number of years ago, I know the wall block and design needed to be beyond the general spec. Bid the job and got it per the way the I thought it should be, based on other numbers added. Glad I did, as a few months later the nisqually quake hit. I had it designed then built it with some earthquake added material. Glad I did that. Meanwhile the $100K/30K lb motor home that was parked 3' away from teh wall was fine etc. If it had been built as one person bid it, the wall and MH would have been behind the yard in a collapsed heap!!

Another job, and engineer designed a wall using a different wall block than I typically use. Even got it passed the city inspectors and approved by there DOT folks. I looked at it and said it would not work, put in a different design and got it approved, and built accordingly. This wall had Metro buses running 5' from it, with a concrete sidewalk above it, the wall block in this situation was not designed to hold this type of both static and active load on it. Neither wall block design was in all honesty, but one had to know that one needed other reinforcement to make it work.

Hence why I believe with all math issues one has to have ALL the factors built in, not just some of them!

Marty
 
#491 ·
Issue for me is you finally got your act together and are out long term cruising. Do you want to spend that time being concerned about hull maintenance, electrolysis and rust? If you brought a used boat regardless of review of the scantlings and the above discussion with it's delightful math do you have any idea of what's under you after a few years? Either you put years of sweat equality or the fruits of years of grinding out that paycheck into your boat. What's that boat worth when you hang up your spurs? What kind of shape is it going to be in? What will it take to keep it in that shape?
Brent can say what he wants but believe when you fall off that wave at hull speed or better on to the corner of a semi submerged container you're going to get a hole. Unless it's forward of a watertight bulkhead or you're in an ETAP you're in big trouble. For me the lack of performance and the maintenance concerns make steel problematic. Modern coatings are great. I'm 3 slips down from a 62' crewed trawleryacht as I write this. Gorgeous design in steel. I'm sure it was flamed zinced and has unobtainium epoxy up the whazoo. Painted white and pristine until you get real close and see the rust streaks.
 
#525 ·
You are not going to fall off a wave faster than hitting a steel barge at 6 knots, which my boats have done with impunity. My boat is 29 years old with her original paint job , in excellent shape.
It takes a tiny amount of steel to make a rust streak, or a huge amount of rust. Seconds with muriatic acid eliminates them quickly.
 
#499 ·
My grandfather used to tell about when he was a child and his parents had died how he went to live with an uncle on a dairy farm. When he was in the third grade they made him start milking the cows, and he was allowed to go to school only after getting all the work done, he dropped out of school later that year.

He learned to read while on an LST in WWII in the Pacific, he landed at Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, Saipan, and many others. On his return from the war he went back to work at US Steel, where he later became the supervisor for all of the maintenance crews for all the US Steel plants in the Birmingham/Bessemer Alabama area. He lost a leg on the job there, in an accident caused by someone who was drinking on the job, but a year later he was back at work and retired at age 70. He once told me that working in the dairy was the hardest thing he had ever done, that said a lot coming from someone who had done so many hard things.

I chased cows for a living as a kid, in the summers and later full time for a year, it was cold, hard, nasty work, but it was honest work and it gave me a very different outlook on life. I certainly do not want any cattle these days that are not cut down to a size that fits on the plate, I prefer my cows medium rare.

I do not think that there are many people still alive who truly know what it was like to work cattle on a dairy back around 1900, but the ones of us who know the ones who did do it know that it made for one tough cowboy. It is too bad that we really do not have too many of the old family farms anymore, but I guess the kids that would be working on them are probably glad.
 
#497 ·
My dad was an agro scientist who started out working at a dairy. I once mentioned to him that if I was ever to be a farmer, the only thing I'd want was a dairy farm - lots of cows (I'd have Jerseys) and all that great stainless equipment and so forth.

He told me that owning a dairy farm was the closest thing to legal slavery that still existed - you HAVE to be there twice a day to milk them - NO days off, Ever, NO vacations, Ever, NO rest, Ever.

Oh well - I always liked boats better anyway.

As to bison - my first summer job was at the old Okanagan game farm. They had several female bison and one bull - that thing set a new standard for huge - I'm over 6' and I couldn't see over his shoulder. Their enclosure used telephone poles for fence posts and once he snapped one just by scratching against it.

Seeing one of those gigantic herds on the move 150 years ago must have been absolutely awesome & terrifying. To think that the First Nations hunted them with spears.....:eek:
 
  • Like
Reactions: krisscross
#500 ·
Did Sturgis on the bike a few years back. Going through Custer a chap on a full dresser got to close to a bison. Bike and him were tossed in to the air. Bike landed on him. He died. No thanks on bison farming. Don't want to be near anything that big and stupid. Now a couple of alpacas who can take care of themselves and won't kill me when I harvest their wool maybe but even growing beef seems like real work. Did a short stint helping out on a diary co-op in upstate NY. No thanks on that either.
 
#501 ·
Disclaimer: I own a steel boat
I'm not about to get into a debate about which is better, I'll just describe my experience. As wise person told me the best boat is the one that when you look at it from your dinghy you smile.
I'm on my second steel boat, both Waterlines.
The previous owner of the first boat had hit a whale, it bent the rudder shaft and broke the skeg free of the boat. He made it back to port without any water in the boat. Fast forward a couple of years, I've bought the boat, sailed it from San Francisco to the Puget Sound, and brought it back to Waterline for a check up. They found some cracks in the plating around the rudder post, not seen or fixed after the whale. Fast forward again, a couple of months, new rudder skeg and plating, thinner wallet and all is good. I think you'll agree after looking at the photos that this would have sent most boats to the bottom.
In the six years I've owned the boats I haven't done any more preventive maintained then my fellow harbour mates, those that keep their boats looking good.
Waterline flame zincs above the waterline. On the first boat I had some exposed steel in the cockpit coaming for two years before fixing it, from a poorly lead furling line, not a speck of rust.
In a bad winter storm two years ago a fender popped which allowed the boat to pound steel to the dock for 36 hours before it was fixed. It rubbed the paint off a 25*50 cm area. I used the boat most of the next summer before fixing it, again no rust, just some prep work and paint and all is good as new. I don't know how other boats would have fared but my steel boat did very well.
 

Attachments

#503 ·
Disclaimer: I own a steel boat
I'm not about to get into a debate about which is better, I'll just describe my experience. As wise person told me the best boat is the one that when you look at it from your dinghy you smile.
I'm on my second steel boat, both Waterlines.
The previous owner of the first boat had hit a whale, it bent the rudder shaft and broke the skeg free of the boat. He made it back to port without any water in the boat. Fast forward a couple of years, I've bought the boat, sailed it from San Francisco to the Puget Sound, and brought it back to Waterline for a check up. They found some cracks in the plating around the rudder post, not seen or fixed after the whale. Fast forward again, a couple of months, new rudder skeg and plating, thinner wallet and all is good. I think you'll agree after looking at the photos that this would have sent most boats to the bottom.
Looks somewhat like the damage that a GRP Phantom 42 had when hitting a rock going at hull speed, except only the rudder stock was damaged :)

Point being that no hull material is "holing-proof" - had it been a bigger whale or had the previous owner been going faster, would your boat have been holed then? (Glad it didn't).
 
#504 ·
Dealer I bought my current boat from also sells Waterline. Impeccably constructed steel boats with aesthetically gorgeous interiors. At 1m up for new not cheap. I was referring to the BS boats not yours or Puffins or the like. Sir I wish wish you joy- you have a very fine vessel. As Bob said shows what can be done in steel.
 
#506 ·
BS is missing in action. He probably can't stand it that this is the weekend of the Perry Rendezvous where 50 of my boats will gather for a big party. On the other hand maybe he's headed down here in his BS boat. I would really, truly like to meet him on the dock.
I can only dream.
 
#510 ·
Marty:
I'm heading up to PL today with Ruby. It will be a quiet day. I'll be there all day Friday. I have rented the Pintail House for the weekend. It's the nice house at the far western end of the marina parking lot. I might be wandering the docks. I might be at the house. Yoiu never know. I'm a ramblin' kind of guy. I'll be easy spot. I'm the extremely good looking guy with grey hair and a black and white Portuguese Water Dog.
 
#514 ·
Another huge advantage of steel is you get to eliminate the heat exchanger, the salt water pump ,the thru hulls for cooling water, and the related plumbing. You get to eliminate the raw water strainer and any chance of your engines cooling system being plugged by sea weeds and marine growth. You simply turn a portion of your hull into a cooling tank. Aluminium works even better ,as it transfers heat as quickly as anything. One diesel mechanic, who works on yachts, was quoted as saying "If everyone went for keel cooling and dry exhaust, we mechanics would all be out of work."
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
Top