From Graham_Roberts@mindlink.bc.ca Tue Jun 27 12:44:40 1995 Return-Path: Date: Tue, 27 Jun 95 12:44:27 -0700 To: martinm@eskimo.com Subject: looking for wisdom From: Graham_Roberts@mindlink.bc.ca (Graham Roberts) Martin: We have owned two ferrocement sailboats. The first, which we bought in 1980, was a 32' Samson-designed C-Mist, "inspired" by the Westsail 32. It was a good boat at a good price because the epoxy fairing coat was blistering and falling off. Incidentally the broker we bought through was John Samson of "Arctic-Tropic boats", a brokerage he started after leaving Samson Marine, which I thought had stopped building boats by then and was simply selling plans. The second was an excellent boat, a Seasong 37 designed by Stan Huntingford and built professionally. This boat also had some paint adhesion problems below the waterline at the stern. Each haulout we would scrape the blisters off and repaint, which would be good for a couple of years. After 12 years we were sorry to sell her last year. Some points to consider: 1. You can get a lot of boat for the money but resale can be problematic, as can insurance. There's a lot of terribly built and poorly finished boats out there which have tainted public opinion. I think ferrocement boats suffered from the mistaken idea that anyone could build a boat in his backyard with no experience and little money. A lot were never finished and some would have been better left unfinished. 2. Don't make the mistake so many do and try to make it look like a fiberglass boat. It was built by a team using trowels and will never look like it popped out of a mold. We painted our first f/c boat with "Rhinohide" exterior latex after stripping the epoxy and never had another blister as the latex allows water vapour through (like Gore-tex). The second boat was painted with epoxy and never had a blister problem above the waterline. 3. Appreciate it for what it is - very strong - dry (no condensation if built properly) - no heavier than an equivalent heavy f'glass cruising boat - and affordable. Chicken wire or mesh? I dunno. Our first was chicken wire, the second square mesh. I doubt that the boat you're considering has "stainless" mesh but you never know. Get a good survey, make sure the hull is sounded for voids, and make sure that the really important stuff is in good shape (sails, engine, ground tackle, rigging etc.) Assuming that the boat has been in use for the last 12 years or so any defects in the hull should be fairly obvious and the good thing about ferrocement is that it only gets stronger as it gets older. Good luck, ========================================================================= From martinm@eskimo.com Tue Jun 27 15:01:27 1995 Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 15:01:13 -0700 (PDT) From: Martin Mikelsons To: Graham Roberts Subject: Re: looking for wisdom In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: Thank you very much for your reply. It is clear that you speak from extensive personal experience. Have you had any experience with collisions (with flotsam) or grounding. I am concerned about the behavior of ferrocement under strong shocks. It seems to me it might be a material more brittle than fiberglass. ========================================================================= From martinm@eskimo.com Sat Jun 28 13:58:59 1995 Status: RO X-Status: D Return-Path: Received: from deep.rsoft.bc.ca by mail.eskimo.com (5.65c/1.35) id AA10978; Wed, 28 Jun 1995 13:58:57 -0700 Received: from mindlink.bc.ca by deep.rsoft.bc.ca with smtp (Smail3.1.28.1 #5) id m0sR4C9-0004oXC; Wed, 28 Jun 95 13:58 PDT Message-Id: Date: Wed, 28 Jun 95 13:58:48 -0700 To: martinm@eskimo.com Subject: Re: looking for wisdom From: Graham_Roberts@mindlink.bc.ca (Graham Roberts) Martin: I have had no personal experience with grounding (just lucky I guess). I have known several people that have had mishaps but no serious damage. Opinion amongst most f/c owners seems to be that the reef would come off second-best. I am told that the most critical type of grounding would be one in which the boat was laying on a rocky shore with the wave action tending to pulverize the hull. I doubt that a glass boat could survive such an incident either. Bear in bind that the hull is mostly steel. From what I remember of the specs. in our Seasong 37 they used 1/4" re-bar on 2" spacing longitudinally and 4" vertically. Several layers of mesh are then wired inside and out to this frame and the cement is then applied. This is the reason that voids can occur if its done sloppily. The keel area is generally extremely strong - it is possible to knock some of the concrete off, particularly if it is a thick section applied to give a smooth look, but it can be easily patched. John Samson told us a story of anchoring his boat "Stormstrutter" in an estuary somewhere in Alaska or Northern B.C. and the tide went waay-out, leaving the boat sitting upright on her keel. They tiptoed around and hoped for the best but eventually the boat fell over with a huge crash. Everyone was shook up but there was no damage. Incidentally he has sailed his boat several times to the South pacific. He ran charters between B.C. and there a few years ago. Cheers, =========================================================================