Steel hull?

[Del Mare]

Originally Posted by Fore and Aft

Steel may be stronger, but I have seen so many steel boats after being sandblasted and they look like cheese graters. It's only the rust and a lifetime of antifoul paint keeping them afloat.
That to me is the big difference between steel and fiberglass. A fibreglass hull can be neglected and easily brought back to life, but steel is another issue. We had a neglected steel yacht in our marina and the marina refused to let it be cleaned below the waterline. Sure enough when it came out and the oysters and growth removed there was a number of holes.
27 foot is the smallest fiberglass yacht I have heard going to Antarctica. This Outremer in the photo below had no trouble visiting Antarctica.
Lepke a lot of Taiwanese squid boats 100 foot or more were fiberglass. Russia has fiberglass 200 foot mine sweepers.
Cheers

Yes, that's true.
They are the strongest, but also the hardest to find in reasonable condition.
Unfortunately, many were built without proper care or maintenance for decades.
I was looking for a Blue Water to sail, also at high latitudes, but I gave up.
Whenever I opened the panels and looked inside, I almost had a heart attack! Beautiful on the outside and totally compromised on the inside.
The last one, a month ago, was a Bruce Roberts 45, it looked like a dream! When I went to look at it, I cried with sadness. If it hit a turtle it would sink. Okay, maybe not so much, but...
So I decided to build my sailboat out of aluminum. It could have been steel, but it was a personal choice, a balance between resistance, value and maintenance hours. I'm 56, and I don't have the maintenance time I had when I was 18.
I'm looking for a shipyard in Vietnam, Thailand or Korea. If anyone has any indications of aluminum shipyards in this region, I'd be grateful.