parallel to the SHTF thread - which HULL Material is best for the "days after"?

[newhaul]

I would recomend old hand laid grp.
My 1963 defender is still in excelent condition.
I know of ones that have sat in water for over a decade with no hull maintance . A quick dive and scrape of the growth on the hull and shes as good as new . Engines thats a different story. Personally i would say diesel engines are best long term . They will run on just about any oil. After all they were designed to run on peanut oil. With the 3 cleans they will last almost forever. Clean oil clean air and clean fuel. Stock up on appropriate lube oil and varuous filters.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Chotu

The answer is:. An infused hull is far superior and far stronger than anything you can lay up by hand. 50/50 glass to resin ratio is the goal. Hand layups are invariably over saturated, leading to a weaker laminate.

Foam core, resin infused boats are the best money can buy and strongest, pound for pound.

Very wrong on the resin to glass ratios . Hand laid glass is about 5 to 1 glass to resin as a maximum. When it is properly saturated and squeegeed after initial layup of each layer.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Very wrong on the resin to glass ratios . Hand laid glass is about 5 to 1 glass to resin as a maximum. When it is properly saturated and squeegeed after initial layup of each layer.

Once chotu corrected his post to 60/40 he was at what In expected. 5 to 1 I never heard of?

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Cadence

Once chotu corrected his post to 60/40 he was at what In expected. 5 to 1 I never heard of?

one thing to keep in mind is the actual weights of the dry materials.

In the shop I worked ( many years ago) this is what a layup looked like after gelcoat in the mold 4 layers of 1.5 oz mat ( more statistical points like bilge turns .and keel areas.)
then the top layer on the main hull was 24 oz roving ( like cloth but a lot heavier .
So end result was 30 oz worth of fiberglass of all types per sq ft . So the ratio would be about 3 to 1 glass to resin. On boats . The surf boards were foam core with a layer of mat and then cloth . 4 to 1 ratio.
Now that I'm awake and actually going over everything 5 to 1 was a misspeak.

[wa1bda]

They managed to make wooden boats, cordage, sails, chain, etc. two hundred years ago... we will probably be able to do it again.


That said, a solid fiberglass hull from the '60s probably has a lot of life left. Bronze chainplates would be nice.


My plan has always been "boat rather than land" because it's offers many more options. Is your current location getting too hot? or too stormy? or overrun with refugees? Time to sail somewhere else.



I think that there will be so many changes to the weather, environment, food supply, population concentrations that it becomes impossible to predict what will happen first and how it will play out. If I get a 100 acre farm, there is a good possibility that the land will become arid. If it is lush and productive, perhaps it will be stripped of its crops.


A boat lets me "get out of Dodge" when Dodge becomes uninhabitable. I don't plan on sailing just to sail. Sailing gets me to the new place. That means that sails, covered and infrequently used, should last a long time.

[sailingharry]

I would argue that in the first decade or two, there will be virtually zero ability to get anything done. Anything. Starting with a haulout. I can't imagine any boat more tolerant of a decade (or two) without a haulout than fiberglass. Not steel, not aluminum, certainly not wood. And, frankly, most well equipped fiberglass boats could nicely survive a decade or two with zero updates. After that, well, you probably aren't buying new sails of any material, even cotton.


For repairs, simple stuff, you probably have what you need. I'm using resin that came with the boat that I bought in 2008, and it's still just fine. Epoxy has an incredible shelf life. But again, you can't do anything underwater because you can't haul out, although you can careen or in some areas you can dry out -- if you work fast.



As far as electronics, you aren't going to have fuel for an engine, so you won't have electricity and all your batteries are history anyway.


And that isn't just your wind or your chartplotter, or even your GPS. You won't even be able to do celestial! No time tick means no accurate time means no longitude, and no current nautical almanac means even latitude won't be easy.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by sailingharry

I would argue that in the first decade or two, there will be virtually zero ability to get anything done. Anything. Starting with a haulout. I can't imagine any boat more tolerant of a decade (or two) without a haulout than fiberglass. Not steel, not aluminum, certainly not wood. And, frankly, most well equipped fiberglass boats could nicely survive a decade or two with zero updates. After that, well, you probably aren't buying new sails of any material, even cotton.


For repairs, simple stuff, you probably have what you need. I'm using resin that came with the boat that I bought in 2008, and it's still just fine. Epoxy has an incredible shelf life. But again, you can't do anything underwater because you can't haul out, although you can careen or in some areas you can dry out -- if you work fast.



As far as electronics, you aren't going to have fuel for an engine, so you won't have electricity and all your batteries are history anyway.


And that isn't just your wind or your chartplotter, or even your GPS. You won't even be able to do celestial! No time tick means no accurate time means no longitude, and no current nautical almanac means even latitude won't be easy.

I agree with frp as the go to hull material.
I disagree with so much of the rest of this post.
They have been making sails out of cotton for millennia No reason to believe it would no longer be available in the SHTF future.

Drydock are going to always be available for haulout work.

As far as power that's what solar and wind generators do on a small scale .


Electronics won't really be a necessity. There are old school things that have been used for ever that don't require electricity.


Why no celestial navigation like has been done since man first put to sea in a dugout canoe.

Timepieces are the easiest of all there are windup ships clocks. There is also this thing called a sundial.

As to attitude that's the easiest one.
In the northern hemisphere a night sighting of Polaris with the use of anything that is capable of giving you a degree angle of where you are in relation to Polaris is your latitude. Same applies to the southern hemisphere with the southern cross .

[edexter]

LOL, I anticipate that the fallout would get us at sea anyway; read "On The Beach", a 1957 post-apocalyptic novel written by British author Nevil Shute. (Since my folks met working at Los Alamos during WWII, I have spent a lot of time imagining the post-nuclear world). HOWEVER, I would follow the trend that a sturdy old fiberglass boat would continue to be a sturdy old boat. Worms would eventually eat the best wood, and steel will rust; aluminum might be OK but hard to fix if it IS holed.

On the other hand, if I couldn't get an artificial resin, I once had to fix an aluminum canoe that ran afoul of a rock in rapids in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota with pine tar and bark; I might try something like that if our mighty Rhodes 22 got a hole in it. In the absence of pine trees, I'd try melting some plastic like PVC over a campfire and using it to secure plastic or aluminum sheeting over the hole.

One note about PVC sheeting used for sails, though: PVC is constructed with plasticizers to make it more pliable, which gradually evaporate, leaving it brittle. In 25 years, welding together some polyethylene, like cut-up old plastic trash cans, might be more viable. You can't glue it, but you can melt it together if you have similar resins.

Also, polyethylene is useful in another way, because things DON'T stick to it: I did get a crack in our hull, and water froze over the winter when she was on her trailer. It delaminated the fiberglass, which got pretty flaky, and I had to cut away about two square feet to get to firm material. That's a pretty big hole, and I really couldn't afford that much epoxy, but wanted the bond strength that epoxy gives.

I noted that epoxy resin sticks to polyester resin fiberglass very well, but not vice versa, so, I cut up a polyethylene garbage can and secured a good sized sheet of it over the outside of the hole, to conform to the hull's shape; then applied several layers of polyester fiberglass and roving to the inside; then after it cured, I took off the garbage can, applied several layers of epoxy fiberglass to the outside of the hull, then more polyester inside to build up the strength of the hull in that area so it wouldn't crack again. That has worked so far, no new cracks in the several years since the repair was made. (I have left out some tedious steps, like sanding the area down to fiberglass to make sure there were no radiating cracks and improve the bond, then removing the mast support, bench/bed, electronics locker, and up to 8" of cement ballast to get to the area from the inside, and then putting all of that stuff back when I was done, but that would have made slow reading).

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by edexter

I noted that epoxy resin sticks to polyester resin fiberglass very well, but not vice versa, so, I cut up a polyethylene garbage can and secured a good sized sheet of it over the outside of the hole, to conform to the hull's shape; then applied several layers of polyester fiberglass and roving to the inside; then after it cured, I took off the garbage can, applied several layers of epoxy fiberglass to the outside of the hull, then more polyester inside to build up the strength of the hull in that area so it wouldn't crack again.

that is real close to the actual way a shipwright like myself would do it . I use waxed Formica taped over the inside of the area being repaired do the build-up on the outside sand fill prime sand and repeat till a smooth surface then a final coat of waxed gelcoat pigmented to match existing hull color. Pulling the Formica somewhere along after the initial layer has cured so you can then work both sides . A smooth surface is 99% of the time not required on the inside.

[limte]

I don't think it is possible to imagine what the world would be like for most of us given the collapse of technology and culture as we know it. Certainly, the possibility of survival for most individuals is likely to be extremely limited. And even given the unlikely proposition of somehow preparing for the worst (whatever "preparing" might imply) there will certainly be many others with more and bigger weapons ready to forcefully take aware all those accumulated preparations.


Regarding celestial navigation, as noted in an earlier post, determining longitude would be impossible for most navigators without an accurate chronometer (and a way to check its accuracy), as well as a current almanac and site reduction tables, and at least a rudimentary knowledge of star and planet identification. Ascertaining longitude through lunar observation is possible, but the knowledge required is beyond the skill of the vast majority of navigators.

Ascertaining latitude and longitude is possible by using only a noon observation of the sun, but it still requires an almanac, and a chronometer. Ascertaining only latitude does not require a chronometer, only an approximation of the time, and a knowledge of the date, but still requires an almanac; however, without a fairly accurate timepiece that is in accord with UTC, determining local apparent noon is not assured, so knowing when to begin "looking" for noon would be a challenge. And of course, it would be necessary to have a good sextant and have developed the skill use it through significant practice. This is not a skill that most sailors have acquired.



Regards,
Bob S

[Old fella]

I think if you were to put all the hull constructions up on the hard, and let 500 years go by, you would find solid glass boats still complete , steel and wooden boats turned to dust, and aluminium ones a pile of white corroded goo.

[acem]

Fiberglass is tough but the sun and weather does degrade it. I have a 45 yr old planter with a fiberglass seed hopper. It has set outside it's entire life. The fiberglass has degraded somewhat but still has life left. It is about 1/4 inch thick.
I think it might live to 100 yr old but I won't live to see it. I doubt our grip sailboats will see 500 but they will easily make it to 100.
Thx-Ace

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by acem

Fiberglass is tough but the sun and weather does degrade it. I have a 45 yr old planter with a fiberglass seed hopper. It has set outside it's entire life. The fiberglass has degraded somewhat but still has life left. It is about 1/4 inch thick.
I think it might live to 100 yr old but I won't live to see it. I doubt our grip sailboats will see 500 but they will easily make it to 100.
Thx-Ace

1963 so 66 years old now and still looks for the most part like it did coming out of the factory.

Yes that is rhe origional green gelcoat

[Juggerknot]

Take a look at this article, if you aren't familiar it's a great read.
https://www.copper.org/applications/...boat_hull.html

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by CaptainRivet

I am sure a proper constructed aluminium boat can beat that.
A Ovni alu boat is on peer with a similar GFK/FRP cruising boat regarding weight in the same size but definitly much stronger then any plastic yogurt cup

Where is your evidence for that. I’ve inspected some very high end aluminium yachts that had serious deterioration issues

Grp has virtually an infinite life