Ferro Cement Hulls ?

[simonEdwards]

Hi All,
I just bought a 1986 Endurance 40 blt by Windboats.
Any one else have one of these I have a thousand questions....

[Brent Swain]

I sailed a cement boat to New Zealand in my early 20's . While I never heard of a cement boat ever having structural failures at sea in any gale,( unlike fibreglass where it is common) when mine hit a reef in Fiji ,it broke up like a watermelon on a sidewalk.
My current steel boat wouldn't have even been damaged in the same conditions. They can't take a point load.
The only thing weaker is a wooden hull.
They often have a zero hull deterioration rate,regardless of how poorly they are maintained.
Some ferro boats are for sale so cheap that if you lose them after having lived aboard and cruised for a year or two, they owe you nothing, you are still money ahead ,and the hull can be considered disposable. Some sell for a fraction the cost of the gear on them. Boatbuilders can buy one of the size wanted, get a bit of experience with her, then build a hull and transfer all the often relatively new gooddies across, saving a pile of cash and time.

[Alan Wheeler]

Would love to see the pics. Maybe not all hundred of them, but some. Please post some in the gallery

[Alan Wheeler]

I do still think you had a bum boat Louis. But OK, you had a bad experiecne that took you to steel and certainly a well built steel boat can be a great boat. But Hartely has a photo of a FC boat on a coral reef. It went aground during a big storm. The photo was aken 7yrs later and the hull was still salvagable. There are countless stories of FC hulls built during WW2 beached and still there today. I personally know of many FC hulls here that have been repaired after going up on rocks. The worst I know was Waitane losing a large chunk of keel. She was easily repaired.So I don't think one bad experience suggests all FC's are going to break apart on a reef. I know one steel boat that I witnessed being built and the welds were of such poor quality that I would never go to sea in it. But that doesn't mean all Steel boats are poorly built.

Wheels, I am not positive, but it sounded like Louis was pitching FC boats. Not sure of the validity of his concern about reefs, as I have never hit a reef with one, but his other points were on target. If you get 40' of well equipped boat for a song, you can't lose. And, I also have never heard of one breaking up in a storm.
Now, I am not sure about that wood boat crack

[Alan Wheeler]

Yes I viewed it that way and I am not trying argue, just giving my view of the fence.

[Whimsical]

Uninformed predjudices don't go away easily do they. I would have thought ferro has been around long enough to prove their validity but obviously not.

Wheels
When you sell the Lady you will have to buy a cat so you can continue to enjoy defending your choice to the uninformed rabble. We must have a masochistic personality trait

Mike

[mudnut]

Hey coop,
we sure lost a good one there.I went to get pished.Wheels,I tend never to doubt ya facts and figures about FC's,you may be thier biggest guru.What I said was,"considering the amount of other boats made of other mediums,they(Meaning FC owners)don't seem to bitch much about a lot of things as do the others(meaning,owners that have boats made of OTHER mediums,like fibreglass--osmossis,steel---rust problems,wood--woodrott and such and so on.
I'm with Louis Riel,ya couldn't get a better boat for size and cost of an FC,thats a fact.Well,in OZ,don't know about the crapp they seem to have in the states.
Mudnut.

[Alan Wheeler]

And that is one reason why we have FC. Cost. Dawn and I can only dream of owning something really fast and flash, and that could be either, Cat or Mono. But we happily accept what we have, knowing many others in the world can't afford even a bath tub to go sailing in, let alone what we have. It's a boat, it suits our needs, it floats and we have lots of fun and what maintenance I do spend on her, never seems to be hull related anyway. It's always the "systems"(Mechanical, Electrical) that can cause trouble, on any form of boat.

[Steve Pope]

Yeah Alan be happy with what you have got, FC has been around long enough and many have done huge mileages they are tried and tested, yes, steel and ally may get off a reef but the best thing is not to get on there in the first place.
I have a photo of a steel Joshua, owned by the designer of the Trismuses on a reef off Rangiroa with all sails set, it never came off, Moitessiers Joshua on the beach at Cabot san Lucas was as good as destroyed to the point where he gave it away and walked away, It was later salvaged and rebuilt but to all intents and purposes it was written off. More recently there was the salvage of Jaques Breils steel boat (Askoy) at Dargaville that had been buried by the sand several years ago. The salvage costs alone would have probably built a couple of new copies. Somewhere I have a photo of it on fire in Zea Marina in Greece, its steel hull saved it that time. It definitely had a chequered history.

[Alan Wheeler]

Fire, now there's a story. A couple off the coast of Kaikoura had a fire onboard their FC. The fire was out of control and they got into the life raft and let it burn. The fire went out and they though, well it's still afloat and so got back on board and actually sailed it to port. It was rebuilt and is still sailing as far as I know.

[gonefishing]

How strange that I was thinking about a trip my Wife and I had and saw this thread.

Last year we went on a Cement boat. I must say I had my doubts before boarding her but it was absolutely fine. Someone asked for a pic so heres one the wife took.


Billy

[Alan Wheeler]

Billy, you need to try posting that photo again or place it in the Gallery and post a link to it.

[Brent Swain]

If you havn't been aground, you haven't been around.
FCs definitly much stronger than wood except possibly cold molded. How do 8 layers of mesh and two of 1/4 inch high tensile rod compare with a copper fastening in red cedar every six inches?
My Uncle's well built FC 45 footer hit he reef in New Caledonia and survived, but there were a couple of four foot holes in the bilges , something that wouldn't have happened to a steel hull. I've seen many well built ones suffer the same.
All the care in the world wont save you from a shipping container on a dark foggy night. Only steel hull will.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by Whimsical

Uninformed predjudices don't go away easily do they. I would have thought ferro has been around long enough to prove their validity but obviously not.

Wheels
When you sell the Lady you will have to buy a cat so you can continue to enjoy defending your choice to the uninformed rabble. We must have a masochistic personality trait

Mike

LOL! Funny on a few levels.