You can read his opinions in condensed form in the latest (December
03) issue of Sail. He acknowledges steel's superiority in terms of
ease of repair, cheapness and strength, but ultimately chooses
aluminum for ease of construction, lightness and ease of maintenance.

Interesting trade-offs. If I was buying new or building custom, I
would go aluminum and learn how to perform the specialized welding. I
would also carry the special, not-widely-availabe alloys that
constitute marine aluminum.

Used, I'd go with overbuilt steel after a THOROUGH surveying and
inspection of the interior coatings. A good choice here might be a
steel boat from the Great Lakes that had never seen salt G.

If I ever get to do long passagemaking, steel seems more forgiving in
the "learning curve" phase, and the fact that they can be a little
slower is not an issue if I'm not racing. I've read too many stories
of passagemakers whose lives were saved because they circumnavigated
in some big-arsed old Dutch ketch built of steel for the North
Sea...oh, yeah, and then there's Moitessier's love of steel boats...

Of course, if I win the lottery, I'm going for a nice, fast Kanter...

R.

On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 17:01:21 -0500, "Charles T. Low"
wrote:

Find the book "The Nature of Boats" by Dave Gerr - he discusses the pros and
cons of different building materials quite intelligently, which is not to
say that he doesn't have strong opinions.

====

Charles T. Low
- remove "UN"
www.boatdocking.com
www.ctlow.ca/Trojan26 - my boat

====

"aussie" yup wrote in message news:3fb53e58@news1...
Buying a used 45 -50 cruising sailboat soon, but what material?
concrete?...seems difficult to get a good one
wood....lots of maintenance?
steel....hot in summer down here in australia
grp....don't know much about it
all thoughts most appreciated!