"Richard Casady" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 17 Aug 2007 08:52:17 -0400, "Roger Long"
wrote:

Strong as wood, heavy as steel, about sums it up.

My inland lake fishing boat is 22 feet of riveted aluminum. It has a
bow locker with two tiny bunks. Too thin to weld. It is both strong
and light and I love it. It cost two grand, and if the available steal
had been glass, I would have that. Steel is either too thin for good
welding, or too heavy, in anything smaller than maybe seventy five
feet. You can perhaps rivet that stuff too. Aluminum killed the wood
boats before there even was glass. Where I do my boating there are a
bunch of aluminum boats mostly fifty years old, no maintainence ever,
and lighter than the wood they replaced. Aluminum is good, but it is a
bit noisy in the sheet metal type thicknesses. Of course, destroyer
hulls were famous for noisy oil canning. Why they called them tin
cans. Quarter inch plates.

What is this repeated comment about "steel...too thin for good welding"?
Unless we're talking about foil, thinner guage steel (16 or even 18 ga) is
entirely weldable. I should think 1/4" steel would be excellent for
below-the-waterline on a 35 footer, perhaps going to 1/8th or 3/16ths above
the waterline and for decks. Frames could be trussed to achieve strength
without excessive weight. I believe that the biggest reason for having
extreme thickness in steel hulls is to provide more material that can be
lost to corrosion before compromising the hull. But with modern epoxy
coatings, perhaps overlaid with glass or some other material for abrasion
protection (to protect the epoxy barrier), this could be made unnecessary.

Just thinking aloud.