As I recall, ferro yachts are generally constructed by spraying a concrete
mixture onto an armature which then becomes the rebar for the structure. I
believe a similar technique is used on some swimming pools. Spraycrete?
Seems close but wrong???

Ferro ships must have been nightmares to build if forms were used. Seems to
me to be virtually impossible to do a complete hull in one form. If the
hull was made in sections joing the sections would have presented sn
interesting problem. Managing the reinforcing inner structure must have
been another interesting challange.

I think if I wanted a quick and dirty large yacht requiring minimum skills,
reasonable completion time and lowest cost I'd build of welded steel for the
hull deck and superstructure. Probably use wood for all the interior
finishing.

With CAD one could even have all the steel cut to shape and delivered ready
to bend and weld. Any medium sized yard could do it.

Butch
"Bill McKee" wrote in message
nk.net...

"Gene Kearns" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 02 Aug 2005 05:16:54 GMT, "Bill McKee"
wrote:


"Gene Kearns" wrote in message
...

Neat stories about their construction, too, from my dad. He worked at
Newport News building them, until he was conscripted in WWII.

Liberty ships were steel, as well as the Victory ships. My dad spent the
war building them in Richmond, CA and my mom spent the time as a nurse at
the shipyard hospital. The hospital became the first Kaiser hospital. I
remember the small stamped models that we had at home. Probably worth a
lot
of money now. First boat I got to pilot.


I have to assume that he saw what he saw...

Apparently, as steel became scarce they, experimented with other forms
of material. One of the stories he recounted was the, to him,
excessive number of hours spent in vibrating the mix in the mold....
sometimes two shifts. He always expected to see the hull come out with
aggregate on the bottom and sand and cement on top.... though he never
saw one come out that way.

I assume vibrating a steel ship would just be loud....

There were concrete ships made, just not Liberty or Victory ships. They
were also made in WW-1. One was never used as the war ended and was
bought and towed to the beach south of Santa Cruz, CA. Was fishing pier,
dance hall for a coupe of years. About 1928-1930. You can see it at Sea
Cliff Beach State Park.