BoatBanter.com - View Single Post - Arctic Icebreaker Suffers Hull Damage in Alaska

Alex[_4_]

Wayne.B wrote:
On Tue, 14 Jul 2015 18:31:04 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 7/14/2015 1:14 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 14 Jul 2015 12:41:38 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 7/14/2015 11:50 AM, Keyser Söze wrote:
On 7/14/15 11:46 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 14 Jul 2015 11:05:38 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

Thankfully the ones encountered on the ICW from the Carolinas' downward
are nice soft sand. Don't ask how I know. There's one place though
... called "the Rock Pile" ... where you have to be very careful. When
we went through heading south there was a beautiful 50 something foot
Sportsfish up on the bank with a huge hole in it's hull.
That is true until you get to the keys. Then you start seeing those
coral heads that may be a couple feet underwater. They will do a job
on shafts struts and wheels.
Up in Alaska it seems everything is rock of some kind. Tin boats and
jet drives are very popular.

I've often wondered how much bottom abuse those alum boats can take.

I doubt they can take much. Hull is pretty thin. I think the idea is
that they are much easier to repair than an inch thick fiberglass hull.

Nope, they dent instead of cracking. (according to the guys who have
them) That is particularly true in cold water.
I have banged my pontoons pretty hard too. I just have a few dents to
show for it. Mine are 0.10 with 0.125 on the nose cone.
They just laugh at oysters.

Think aluminum would do as well on rocks or a coral reef? I don't
know. Of course fiberglass doesn't do well either.

===

Aluminum definitley does better in what I would call "blunt force
trauma" because it bends but does not shatter and splinter the way
fiberglass does. It can also be pounded back out with fairly low
effort and can be made to look like new when faired and painted. I
used to race on a 50 ft aluminum sloop back in the mid 90s that was in
a major collision and sustained a very large dent. It took less than
a week to do the repair and it was impossible to tell where the damage
had been.

Rocks and coral reefs are problematic because of the sharp edges that
can slice open aluminum but usually with less overall damage than
fiberglass, and much easier to repair.

Aluminum welds are not very forgiving so the repairs will never be as
good as the original.