3D Printed Boats

[Suijin]

So I just stumbled on this article. Fascinating. Apologies if it's made its way through here before.

https://www.compositesworld.com/blog...inted-sailboat

Occurs to me that as this technology advances (and the whole 3D printing industry is tearing along with advances in materials and machines) the cost of producing a hull should plummet dramatically.

[hellosailor]

Given the costs of that huge 3D printer, and the costs of the raw stock to feed it...I'm not sure "plunge" is the right word. It could be interesting if multiple designers got together and used 3D printers as a "distribution network" so there would be substantially lower distribution costs, i.e. a south african cat could be locally built in Seattle. But of course, there's more to a boat than just the hull.