Hull material in Catamarans

[David M]

No problem KGP. I misread the meaning. My apologies.

[ldrhawke]

Originally Posted by fastcat435

The following materials are used as the fibre reinforcement .
E Glass 1 x in price
S Glass much stronger than e glass and 10 x in price
Carbon fibre a bit more expensive than S glass and very strong and yes also brittle.18 x in price
Basalt fibre stronger than E glass not brittle and a few added advantages 6 x

Kevlar / twaron / aramide , all the same material is only good as a reinforcement against hull penetration but not good for the main material since the elongation is to much ( it stretches )

Greetings

Gideon

I think boat builders get a little carried away sometimes as to the cost of using different construction materials. These are not the exact materials a particular builder would use, but they are fairly representative in showing the cost differentials between using comparable weight E glass, S Glass, Carbon fiber, and kevlar and the difference between polyester, vinyl ester, and epoxy.

It isn't any 10 or 18 times difference in material cost from cheapest to most expensive. These prices do not reflect the discounts builder get buying in large quantities.

My point is that the cost of raw materials is a very very small percentage of the cost of a 45 to 50 foot catamaran that sells for close to or over a million dollars. When builder try to justify the increase in the cost of a large cat because of material cost or because raw materials have gone up, I find it a joke. A finished hull ready to have the interior built out and furniture and equipment installed is only about 15 to 25% of the cost of a completed new cat.

As you can see resin only increases 15% to 20% as you go up from polyester to vinyl ester to epoxy.

Boat building resins costs:




S glass cost about twice as much as E glass, and carbon fiber cost about three times more than S glass. Kevlar is close to the same price as S glass.

Boat building fiber costs:

[44'cruisingcat]

Better builders would be using stitched unidirectional glass rather than the woven stuff you've shown. It's a bit more expensive again. Processes like infusion do create some wastage too, which adds to the expense, as well as quite a few consumables.

It varies with different construction methods, I'd say materials for my hull and deck account for close to half the cost of my boat. A foam/glass boat is cheaper in materials, but hugely more labour intensive. Glass over Plywood would be cheaper again, with somewhat less labour than foam/glass.

[ldrhawke]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

Better builders would be using stitched unidirectional glass rather than the woven stuff you've shown. It's a bit more expensive again. Processes like infusion do create some wastage too, which adds to the expense, as well as quite a few consumables.

It varies with different construction methods, I'd say materials for my hull and deck account for close to half the cost of my boat. A foam/glass boat is cheaper in materials, but hugely more labour intensive. Glass over Plywood would be cheaper again, with somewhat less labour than foam/glass.

If I remember correctly, you said building the boat yourself, it looked like your 44' cat would cost about $160k fully equipped. That makes your hull and deck about $80k.

Again, if I remember correctly Gideon is asking around a $1 mil for a FastCat 455. If he used S Glass, carbon reinforcement in areas, and epoxy; that would make his material cost about 2 to 3 times your cost. The materials cost number show above show price to be 2 to 3 times the cost of a E glass polyboat or vinylester boat. The biggest cost difference is the fiber. Which would make make his hull and deck cost about $150 to $250k based on my estimated 15% to 25% cost for his hull and deck. I think the 15% to 20% of total cost is probably closer.

I don't think my estimate is too far off. I don't know where these 10 times and 18 times material cost come from. Looks like you can save a lot of money building your own cat......if you don't assume your labor is worth much.

[fastcat435]

Originally Posted by ldrhawke

If I remember correctly, you said building the boat yourself, it looked like your 44' cat would cost about $160k fully equipped. That makes your hull and deck about $80k.

Again, if I remember correctly Gideon is asking around a $1 mil for a FastCat 455. If he used S Glass, carbon reinforcement in areas, and epoxy; that would make his material cost about 2 to 3 times your cost. The materials cost number show above show price to be 2 to 3 times the cost of a E glass polyboat or vinylester boat. The biggest cost difference is the fiber. Which would make make his hull and deck cost about $150 to $250k based on my estimated 15% to 25% cost for his hull and deck. I think the 15% to 20% of total cost is probably closer.

I don't think my estimate is too far off. I don't know where these 10 times and 18 times material cost come from. Looks like you can save a lot of money building your own cat......if you don't assume your labor is worth much.

Hallo Idr I wish I would get 1 mil usd for my 455 , it is still a lot but a quarter mil less or at this moment $ 730.000,00
I recently did do the calculation and the cost of going high tech, epoxy, kevlar carbon, basalt and foam for just the materials is about $ 75.000,00 usd over the cost of glass balsa and polyester . And than you do not take into account the resin infusion process that is at least double as time consuming as hand lamination and than off course the spray painting instead of using gell coat .
The real difference in total building cost is at least $ 250.000,00 more to build in our way.
Regarding the cost of the raw fibers in Europe

E glass costs € 1.50 per kilo
S Glass costs € 10,25 per kilo
Basalt costs € 9.50 per kilo
Carbon Fiber 3 K costs € 48.00 per kilo
Kevlar costs are € 38.00
These prices are the volume costs
we purchase in excess of 5 tons ( 5000 kilo per order )
Epoxy for resin infusion is € 9,00 per kilo and the hardener
is € 12.00 per kilo
Polyester starts at € 1.35 per kilo up to € 5.00 per kilo for a high quality Vinylester
Greetings

Gideon

[imagine2frolic]

Sandy,

The man that built Maltese Falcon. Had a previous boat built. Navy blue about 155 ft. ketch if memory serves me correctly. It is aluminum, and walking down the docks alongside her to take a look. She was as smooth as a babies butt. Something any Ferarri would be jealous of. I can only imagine the man hours to fair it.

BACK ON TOPIC
My boat being tri direction strips of Mahogany 4 mms thick is extremely fair. You have to catch the light on the hull correctly to see the strips of wood.

[ldrhawke]

Originally Posted by fastcat435

Hallo Idr I wish I would get 1 mil usd for my 455 , it is still a lot but a quarter mil less or at this moment $ 730.000,00
I recently did do the calculation and the cost of going high tech, epoxy, kevlar carbon, basalt and foam for just the materials is about $ 75.000,00 usd over the cost of glass balsa and polyester . And than you do not take into account the resin infusion process that is at least double as time consuming as hand lamination and than off course the spray painting instead of using gell coat .
The real difference in total building cost is at least $ 250.000,00 more to build in our way.

Greetings

Gideon

It's nice to see a drop in your boat pricing in this economy.

Last price I had from you was $924,000 for the basic boat and with the basic cruising Package which only had a single solar panel, no AC, and no gen set. The bare boat base price was $806,000. Add the Green Motion options and batteries and it put it well over a million.

Greetings

[fastcat435]

Hallo Idr

It must have to do with the dollar / Euro exchange rate since our price has not changed the last year , The base price is $ 730.000,00 but that is not that basic since items like
GPS chart plotter , autopilot and many more are standard.
It also includes a full sailing wardrobe
The $ has strengthened or the euro has weekened by almost 10 % since 2 weeks
A Green Motion version including generator is now $ 820.000,00 or 900.000,00 including the Ocean crossing package and that includes everything from bed sheets to the RIB , outboard etc etc.

Greetings

Gideon

[ldrhawke]

Originally Posted by fastcat435

I recently did do the calculation and the cost of going high tech, epoxy, kevlar carbon, basalt and foam for just the materials is about $ 75.000,00 usd over the cost of glass balsa and polyester . And than you do not take into account the resin infusion process that is at least double as time consuming as hand lamination and than off course the spray painting instead of using gell coat .
The real difference in total building cost is at least $ 250.000,00 more to build in our way.
Regarding the cost of the raw fibers in Europe

E glass costs € 1.50 per kilo
S Glass costs € 10,25 per kilo
Basalt costs € 9.50 per kilo
Carbon Fiber 3 K costs € 48.00 per kilo
Kevlar costs are € 38.00
These prices are the volume costs
we purchase in excess of 5 tons ( 5000 kilo per order )
Epoxy for resin infusion is € 9,00 per kilo and the hardener
is € 12.00 per kilo
Polyester starts at € 1.35 per kilo up to € 5.00 per kilo for a high quality Vinylester
Greetings

Gideon

Can I purchase my E glass and polyester resin materials from you if I decide to build a boat with them. Based on your $75,000 more, and a nearly 10 to 1 cost ratio difference for materials you use compared to a poly/E Glass boat, that calculates poly/E Glass should only cost me about $7,500 for a 45 foot boat.

That isn't even taking into account that you use only about 1/2 the weight in resin and fiber materials building a FastCat, than what is used in building a poly/E glass boat.

Your math is often difficult to follow when numbers are backed in.

Greetings back

[fastcat435]

Originally Posted by ldrhawke

Can I purchase my E glass and polyester resin materials from you if I decide to build a boat with them. Based on your $75,000 more, and a nearly 10 to 1 cost ratio difference for materials you use compared to a poly/E Glass boat, that calculates poly/E Glass should only cost me about $7,500 for a 45 foot boat.

That isn't even taking into account that you use only about 1/2 the weight in resin and fiber materials building a FastCat, than what is used in building a poly/E glass boat.

Your math is often difficult to follow when numbers are backed in.

Greetings back

Hallo Idr

yes you can and we do not use half , I wish with resin infusion there is a lot of wastage especially with the resin we use , peel ply sun cloth, and plastic foils and that is thrown away but filled up with resin we calculate 2000 kilo of resin used in the building of 1 FastCat and we do not use 50 % of fibers but more like 80 %
We are a very open company so whatever you want to know please ask.
Greetings

Gideon

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by fastcat435

Hallo Idr

It must have to do with the dollar / Euro exchange rate since our price has not changed the last year , The base price is $ 730.000,00 but that is not that basic since items like
GPS chart plotter , autopilot and many more are standard.
It also includes a full sailing wardrobe
The $ has strengthened or the euro has weekened by almost 10 % since 2 weeks
A Green Motion version including generator is now $ 820.000,00 or 900.000,00 including the Ocean crossing package and that includes everything from bed sheets to the RIB , outboard etc etc.

Greetings

Gideon

Around $100,000 extra for the hybrid? Have you worked out how many miles you'd need to motor to break even on fuel costs?

I've read that you'd need to drive a Prius 365,000 km to recoup it's additional cost over a Corolla, in fuel savings. (And that assumes you don't need to replace the batteries) I think this might work out to be similar.

[Gludy]

Gideon

The price seems to have dropped since I saw you when it would have cost me over £600,000!

When is your next FastCat due off the line? It must be any week now.

[lolanreg@smartc]

A few 37ft cats were built in Oz in the late 80's early 90's out of epoxy and they had so many problems that the builders went out of business. They seemed to be extremely flexable, fast though. I went to the Solomons in an extended (42ft) one, How the mast and rigging stayed up was anyones guess. in fact we nearly lost it up there, just luck it didn't fall down. the Gelcoat was always coming adrift from under the bridge deck.Others had problems with the gelcoat on their decks. Finally the moulds went to the builder of my cat and were built in Polyester from then on and through several other builders who did a better job. Natureboy

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by lolanreg@smartc

A few 37ft cats were built in Oz in the late 80's early 90's out of epoxy and they had so many problems that the builders went out of business. They seemed to be extremely flexable, fast though. I went to the Solomons in an extended (42ft) one, How the mast and rigging stayed up was anyones guess. in fact we nearly lost it up there, just luck it didn't fall down. the Gelcoat was always coming adrift from under the bridge deck.Others had problems with the gelcoat on their decks. Finally the moulds went to the builder of my cat and were built in Polyester from then on and through several other builders who did a better job. Natureboy

I wasnt aware that Claude was using epoxy building Inspiration 10's and have articles where he supplied samples for survey drop tests and they were definetly in Poly/foam.

I provided a very light epoxy/cedar sample for the same series of tests

An observation I made on the newer build boats (I saw some cutouts) was that the foam seemed to have shrunk in thickness and the fiberglass had become outrageously thick IMHO

The extended 42 ft one you speak of, is that Daedalus?

Dave

[lolanreg@smartc]

Hello Dave. No it wasn't claude that built them in epoxy, when I went to see the workshop at bullimba in 91 he was offering to build them in epoxy, but I don't recall any that were, possible though . Claude got the moulds for the azure 37 and built the first in polly for an american called Sky while I was there. He only built in polly as he also had disasterous results in epoxy re I think a Simpson 27 and also some disasters in polly as well. He used to employ young dole guys to do all the work but a great shipwright guy that did the timber. When I was there with mine fitting it out for 6 months, we hardly ever saw Claude, which probably wasn't good for his business as the young guys never knew how much to lay up. many hulls overweight to buggary. Like mine. Stuff was all ways dissappearing from his store. But I shan't complain , I could use all the machinery I needed and paid him for the phone and power.My tenure lasted there until Cluade was able to pay for my last pieces, like fuel and water tanks, which coincided with me finishing the rest. In them days one had to watch all boat builders as for some reason they loved going to the pub at lunch and didn't come back! Always wanted the next payment before completeing the first. Ho Ho, do things ever change? Saw some horrible epoxy boo boos in the yard. My memories of that place would be a good novel.Reg Ps No it wasn't daedelous, they had deck gelcoat problems. It was Allegro and that was a voyage from hell!