maintenance and normally lower costs when it’s time for a haul-out.” Steel boats on the other hand, have higher maintenance requirements, with significant annual expense to maintain a yacht finish free of spot corrosion and rust. Each third or fourth year, a steel yacht will likely need to be hauled, sandblasted and repainted. In his book, Elements of Boat Strength, Dave Gerr, who has designed and built boats in fiberglass, aluminum, wood and steel says this about steel boats and corrosion, “…rust is the cause of more maintenance throughout the life of the vessel than any other consideration in steel hulls.” He goes on to state that a general rule-of-thumb is that a steel boat will lose about (0.004 inches per year), which means that in 25 years, 3/16 or 0.1875-inch hull plating will be reduced to 0.09 inches. Maintenance can help prolong the life of a steel boat, but there still are areas, such as bilges, around tanks and at the base of bulkheads where condensation collects, that will always remain inaccessible. It has often been stated that, “ A steel boat rusts from the inside out.” To compensate for this “wastage”, designers specify larger dimension, or scantlings, for steel boats than those required for purely structural reasons. For example, for vessels under 100 feet, that should only require 1/4-inch steel plating, 3/16inch plating is used. And where 3/16inch plating is required they specify 5/16-inch steel. As a result of wastage, a vessel’s value depreciates rapidly over the course of its life. Jim Leishman concurs. “When people make a decision to buy steel over fiberglass, if they look actuarially at these things, they’re going to find that the steel boat offers them no significant advantage in terms of safety or proven strength. At the same time, they have to look at the proven disadvantages of steel, such as increased maintenance 112 · CIRCUMNAVIGATOR 2003
A huge advantage of fiberglass over all other materials is its tremendous design flexibility. The ability to easily form complex shapes with fiberglass makes it the ideal material for modern, high-efficiency hull designs and complex superstructure shapes.
costs—escalating as the boat ages—and historically poor resale value, when compared to a production fiberglass boat. An additional disadvantage of the steel boat’s heavier construction is excessive weight, requiring more fuel and power to operate. Although this may not necessarily be as much of an issue in a full-displacement power cruiser, it still can adversely affect the vessel’s center of gravity and stability, especially when in light ballast. In addition to its high strength and ease of maintenance, one of fiberglass construction’s biggest advantages over all other materials is its tremendous design flexibility. The ability to easily form complex shapes with fiberglass makes it the ideal material for modern, high-efficiency hull designs and complex superstructure shapes. “Fiberglass construction allows us to take yacht building to the next level of design,” says Le Mieux. “Hull forms with compound curves offer more stability than the traditional hard-chine
designs of metal boats. And these are only realistically possible with fiberglass.” Compared to their steel cousins, fiberglass yachts, produced from polished female molds, also tend to be more esthetically pleasing in line and shape, and also exhibit a higher overall finish quality. Achieving the same level of finish in a steel boat is usually prohibitively expensive. This is another reason why fiberglass boats traditionally retain a higher long-term value. Fiberglass boats have two other advantages over steel boats that make them attractive to own and live on—lower thermal conductivity and less noise. Thermal conductivity can easily become an issue in hot and cold climates. Steel is a terrific conductor of heat—the minute the sun hits the deck of a steel boat it’s going to transfer that heat to the interior. Cold water also draws heat out of steel. To counter this, steel boats require extensive insulation. On the other hand the resin laminates, and cored decks and hulls of fiberglass boats, work like an ice chest, providing an excellent thermal barrier between the interior and the outside environment. Steel is also naturally resonant, making it an excellent transmitter of noise and vibration, while fiberglass acts as natural attenuator of sound and vibration. The result is a quieter, more comfortable boat—something to take into consideration when living on a vessel day in and day out. So, should you choose steel or fiberglass when buying a long-range power voyager? While the debate is unlikely to disappear any time soon, the fact each material has been shown to be strong enough for the job means one less key criterion to consider. That leaves you to concentrate on other variables that are every bit as significant: the builder’s reputation, the boat’s design and construction, its range, displacement-tolength ratio, accommodations, features, appearance and overall quality. C