On Wed, 9 Dec 2009 13:08:20 -0800 (PST), Bob La Londe
wrote:

On Nov 29, 6:28*pm, "Bob La Londe" wrote:
I find it interesting that a lot of the small boat aluminum designs seem to
say the main hull should be 3/16 and yet .100 is used in a heck of a lot of
commercially available small boats. *.125 is considered heavy duty. *Is it
just CYA?

Anyway, getting back to my original point. A lot of commercially
available boats seem to be made out of a lot light sheet than the
designers are reccomending in the boat plans they are selling.

http://www.seaarkboats.com/boat.php?...&boat=Big+Easy

For example: The link above is to a medium V design 24 footer. The
specs says .125 thick sheet. I can't buy a plan to build a boat that
size designed for .125 sheet. Most of the ones I have seen want to
spec .1875 which basically means .190. Now why is that? Is it just
the typical over building to cover your dearie aere, or are all those
commercial boat builders building inadequate boats and damn the
liability?

I wonder whether you are comparing designs that could be in one case
simply a covering attached to a structural frame where the skin only
keeps the water out while the structure provides the strength versus a
design where the skin provides some of the total structure strength?

Think of the original kayak design versus a stitch and glue dinghy
with no internal frames for exaggerations of this concept.

I remember reading that some of the British Steel 70-footers found
dented plating around the bow after leaving the Southern Ocean. the
answer was to add frames to the bow section for the next year's race,
not increase the thickness of the plating. In other words the
thickness of the plating was not considered a factor in the strength
of the bow portions. The frames provided the strength while the
plating kept the water out.

Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)