pros and cons of a fiberglass hull.

[squarelips]

Hi all-

 

I am interested in buying a cruiser boat to liveaboard. I am having to sell my narrowboat and downsize. im fairly used to a metal hull and have blacked it and put on new annodes and learned all about the maintenance of it. However I am looking now at fiberglass boats and dont know very much at all about the material. What are the pros and cons!

What maintenance is required!

Would i still need an out of the water survey before buying!

Are they weaker or break easier than metal hulls!

 

Thank you for all your help. I really appreciate it. thank you thank you thank you. x x x x

[Naughty Cal]

You will still need to pull the boat out of the water to antifoul the hull and fit new anodes. The anodes will be fitted to the running gear rather than the hull.

 

GRP boats have been around a fair time now and the originals are still floating in various states of repair. As with any boat it is advisable to have a survey before buying, it can save you a lot of heartbreak in the long run.

 

For liveaboard purposes look for a boat built with a double skin it will provided much better insulating properties. A lot of older cruisers are single skinned.

 

Are they weaker, well that depends what exactly you plan to do with it.

 

As with any boat look for a well maintained example. If you are looking at the cheaper end of the market it can be full of money pits but amongst them will be a few shining examples of well cared for and looked after boats.

 

Pros

 

It doesnt rust

Its easy to maintain.

Its easy to repair.

 

Cons

 

Can get osmosis

Can be easy to scratch or scuff

You will be for ever branded a plastic boat or tupperware tub owner

 

We have owner our cruiser for five years now and love it. We dont liveaboard full time but do spend four nights a week onboard.

[Alastair]

UV can make the gelcoat brittle and cracked.

 

Water penetration in the layers (bad layup with incomplete resin saturation) can lead to damage from freezing in winter.

 

Fire risk - fibreglass burns.

 

Attaching things such as extra T or a bracket needs to be done carefully - the fibreglass will be thin in some places and not capable of taking extra load.

 

Advantages:

 

No rust (but watch out for corrosion of running gear and through-hulls)

 

No need to paint frequently

 

Minor repairs are very simple.

[Phil Ambrose]

Any boat with Osmosis will in all likelyhood out live the owner

 

Scratches can be easily filled and polished out

 

Sticks and stones etc etc

We lived aboard a 40ft X 12ft GRP for 10 years and were very comfortable.

I think Phylis means a boat fitted out with proper cabin sides and head lining as opposed to day boat sort of vessels.

You will have to decide what beam boat you want (governed by your cruising ground) having established that you can then look for your new boat.

Phil

U/V does not have any detrimental effect on Gelcoat, go look at thousands on the Broads

GRP does not soak up water and fall apart in frost,go look at thousands on the Broads

Yes GRP can burn (not very well) but have you seen the amount of wood in a NB.

Phil

[Neil2]

If you only intend to cruise the wide canals and/or rivers a grp boat makes a lot of sense though you might have to buy a lot of fenders for the canals.

 

But for the narrow canals the choice of vessel is quite limited. There aren't too many narrow grp boats over 30 foot so space is going to be a problem if you are used to something bigger. And in my view they aren't as suited to the rough and tumble of these waterways compared to a steel boat.

 

If you are prepared to forego narrow canals, there are some big advantages in buying a grp cruiser. The main one is you can get a lot of boat for your money. If you consider what £20,000 will get you in the steel boat market, then look at the prices of grp cruisers you'll soon see. Second there is a huge variety of boats to choose from compared to narrowboats where it really just boils down to "how long?" I would be careful though in that there are boats that look like bargains only because the market for them has all but dried up - boats with inboard petrol engines for example. Third, with a "proper" boat, and I know that term upsets a lot of folk on this forum but I can't think of any other way to put it, you have access to parts of the network that NB owners take on at some risk, tidal waters, estuaries etc.

 

As for strength, two things. Bear in mind that a lot of grp boats date back to the early days of grp when the strength of the material wasn't fully understood, so craft like Freemans and Brooms were heavily overbuilt, that's why most of them are still around. Also, given that even some of the more modest offerings say from Norman or Shetland were intended to carry big outboards and sail on the plane, they had to be strongly built. Look at a little boat like the Shetland Speedwell for example, you see many of these on the canals but it was designed to be taken to sea.

 

There are some cracking examples of older Brooms, Fairlines, Princesses and Freemans around that were the preserve of the well heeled in their day, and these boats can often be had for a song these days.

 

But as with all aging craft, I would always get a survey.

[Arthur Brown]

The main downside of GRP is that there is a poorer range of aspect ratios, -once you exceed 40ft long then the beam tends to be more than 6'10.

 

Usually the bow of a cruiser is the location of the berths and the bow end can be noisy.

 

Cruisers are more likely to have a petrol engine or an outboard which makes BSS more challenging

[Phil Ambrose]

Our 40ft cruiser had main cabin at the stern though why the bows should be noisier is beyond me, and in my 10years living on and cruising a 40 footer on the Broads most boats have diesel as propulsion fuel, nigh on impossible to get petrol on the Broads.

Phil

[Neil2]

Our 40ft cruiser had main cabin at the stern though why the bows should be noisier is beyond me, and in my 10years living on and cruising a 40 footer on the Broads most boats have diesel as propulsion fuel, nigh on impossible to get petrol on the Broads.

Phil

It's nigh on impossible to get petrol for a boat anywhere, and of course you have to pay full price for it, so there's one big disadvantage, but OTOH everyone knows this so petrol powered boats are, or should be, priced much cheaper than diesel engine boats.

 

Because petrol is so relatively cheap in the States most of these boats tend to be American in origin and not really designed for our waterways. But a lot of Freemans had petrol engines as an original fitment, though many have been re-engined.

 

Here's a couple of examples, taken at random, of classic river boats. Both overpriced of course.

 

http://www.apolloduck.co.uk/display.phtml?aid=303397

 

http://www.apolloduck.co.uk/display.phtml?aid=306974

[Naughty Cal]

The main downside of GRP is that there is a poorer range of aspect ratios, -once you exceed 40ft long then the beam tends to be more than 6'10.

 

Usually the bow of a cruiser is the location of the berths and the bow end can be noisy.

 

Cruisers are more likely to have a petrol engine or an outboard which makes BSS more challenging

Why is the bow end any noisier than the stern end?

 

Provided you have a properly installed petrol engine and system there is no reason why getting a BSS is any more challenging than for a diesel powered boat.

 

Petrol is more difficult to get waterside but people manage. Up until a couple of months ago our marina didnt sell petrol and the nearest avaliability waterside was either Newark or Naburn. Regardless of this people still managed to run their cruisers, some with twin 7.4l V8's gurgling away. So it is possible.

 

Personally I would aim for a diesel powered boat for ease of fuel avaliability.

[Neil2]

TBH the difficulty I'm having at the moment finding a sound steel boat at the right price I'm sorely tempted by the virtues of GRP, even if it does mean foregoing the narrow canals, we've done most of them anyway.

 

But I'm equally intrigued by the "noisy bow" comment. The only way I can think it is noisier sleeping up the pointy end is if you happen to be up against the stern of another boat and they have the engine running... That has happened to us many times.

 

 

.

[Naughty Cal]

TBH the difficulty I'm having at the moment finding a sound steel boat at the right price I'm sorely tempted by the virtues of GRP, even if it does mean foregoing the narrow canals, we've done most of them anyway.

 

But I'm equally intrigued by the "noisy bow" comment. The only way I can think it is noisier sleeping up the pointy end is if you happen to be up against the stern of another boat and they have the engine running... That has happened to us many times.

 

 

.

Why is that any different to being in the stern and listening to an engine running.

 

Our bed is midships and very quiet but on the odd occasion we have slept on the bow saloon conversion it has also been quiet!

[Barry]

Sometimes, in the bow, if there's a wind and/or current you get wavelets slapping against the curve of the hull. I rather like it

[Phil Ambrose]

To sum up, just go for it and ignore all the scaremongers, thousand of boaters on the Broads cannot all be wrong and as has been said before Steel boats are as rare as Hens teeth on the Broads and every boater there seems to manage with GRP boats quite happily

 

Phil

[Naughty Cal]

Sometimes, in the bow, if there's a wind and/or current you get wavelets slapping against the curve of the hull. I rather like it

You get that in any boat though!

[bargemast]

TBH the difficulty I'm having at the moment finding a sound steel boat at the right price I'm sorely tempted by the virtues of GRP, even if it does mean foregoing the narrow canals, we've done most of them anyway.

 

But I'm equally intrigued by the "noisy bow" comment. The only way I can think it is noisier sleeping up the pointy end is if you happen to be up against the stern of another boat and they have the engine running... That has happened to us many times.

 

My boat is a fairly heavy built steel Trawler, my mastercabin is at the bows, I'm moored on a river and I can hear lots of rubbish like empty glass bottles, and during floods treetrunks banging against her bows, you wouldn't hear those noises (as loud) sleeping at the stern.

 

Peter.

[Alastair]

Yes GRP can burn (not very well) but have you seen the amount of wood in a NB.

Phil

 

GRP burns very very well. My wife has had a GRP kit car go up and as for GRP boats burning . . . .

 

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/10705581.UPDATED__Boat_on_fire_in_York_city_centre/

[Guest]

I like my steel boat very much, but have spent many hours on GRP and wooden boats. They all have their advantages and disadvantages, but there is nowt wrong at all with GRP boats. It is no coincidence that so many have been made, and some old ones are still going strong. They need treating somewhat differently to a steel boat, and like anything will benefit from proper care and maintenance.

 

ps GRP burns very well, but so do steel boat interiors, which very often cause the scrapping of the steelwork owing to distortion.

[PhilR]

One consideration that hasn't been mentioned is standing headroom (or the lack of it). Other than that, the pros might outweigh the cons?

[Naughty Cal]

 

GRP burns very very well. My wife has had a GRP kit car go up and as for GRP boats burning . . . .

 

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/10705581.UPDATED__Boat_on_fire_in_York_city_centre/

So are you implying that a steel boat in similar circumstances wouldn't go up in flames. Because if you are that is utter bollocks.

One consideration that hasn't been mentioned is standing headroom (or the lack of it). Other than that, the pros might outweigh the cons?

How much over 6ft do you want?

[Guest]

I think that the headroom point is valid. Some GRP boats do not have standing headroom. Some do of course. I seem to recall being able to stand in our DC, but definitely couldn't in my mate's Loftus Bennet cruiser, or a GRP Dolphin cruiser. Can't remember whether Normans have full headroom.

[Naughty Cal]

Yes they do.

[Puddlejumper]

Seems to me they are alot of folk answering that have not got a clue about grp boats but think they have yes a decent size liveaboard proberly wont go on canals same as n/b struggle on large rivers its all orses for courses have a look and a out off water survey and valuation for insurance purpose

go for diesel cause as said petrol on most rivers is like finding rockin horse sh** and when you do its around £1.50 ltr

[Naughty Cal]

No doubt you will get shot down in flames for saying that.

[Guest]

Yes they do.

Cheers. Should know as my wife's uncle had one, but can't honestly remember.

[Alastair]

So are you implying that a steel boat in similar circumstances wouldn't go up in flames. Because if you are that is utter bollocks.

 

No, the steel wouldn't burn.

 

The linings and fittings might burn - but they are much easier to extinguish when contained by a hull and coachroof that doesn't burn.