SaltyDawg86
Senior Member
Beautiful boat! International 2 part paint is a really good paint to use. Not sure on the price though
A better view of Florence A
Hi all,
Looking at purchasing a Trawler and was looking for the pro's & con's on steel hulls. I ran a search here at TF, however did not fine anything.
Thanks for the insight!
The issue as I see it is all the attention goes to the exterior while I expect the problems are interior
Few boats are dry in bilge. Stink is the major problem with wet fg bilge. What about steel
The zinc plates bolted to the hull is often called a diver's plate or zinc. They can be replaced by a diver without lifting the boat on the hard. Welding is pretty typical.
As far as the bridge painting goes...We had to repaint the steel webbing of a bridge a few years ago after laying a 20" pipe under the bridge. All holes and attachment hardware were painted with some stuff that I do not even think is legal on boats. Ga. DOT supplied coating. Wish I had a few more gallons of it.
Steel is also a better heat conductor than glass, so steel hulls need to be insulated or they will have significant condensation problems in colder water.
Construction methods and quality are also major considerations, but that is true with glass boats too. For a steel hull, the grade of steel used is significant. Mild steel will have a pretty short life if the coating system fails. You also need to be concerned with topsides weight. A steel house is heavy where you don't want weight. Many boats deal with this by using an aluminum house, but that introduces new corrosion problems if the paint fails at the steel-aluminum junction.
I own a steel boat so will chime in a little here after first stipulating a couple of points: First, Like Sargent Shultz, I know nothing, and my strong preference for steel hulls is about emotion, not sound reasoning. I grew up in my parents small business that owned 25-30 small boats in fresh water. Ninety percent of the boats were metal but ninety percent of the maintenance was on the 10 percent of boats that were glass. Long time ago and different from what we do now but I am stuck with the bias. Also my comments here are only based on three years of my own experience with this boat in salt but she has lived her whole life there.
In regard to the quote above, my experience may agree with the second point but is in direct opposition to the first. My boat is Dutch built steel and the coatings are old technology and 31 years old on the inside with no insulation below the waterline. Except where the coating have been injured by careless physical activity in the engine bilge, the coatings that I can see are flawless and show no corrosion. We sounded the hull on survey and 100 pings found absolutely no variation from builder spec at 30 years. Outside and above the waterline we chase some coating failures and I suspect recoating to be an every 12-15 year affair.
In regards to insulation/condensation: I am as baffled by this as others here may be but I had never been around a dry boat until Klee Wyck. My geography is cold water for 12 months a year (low 50s) and very damp air for 9 months a year. This boat is spectacularly dry and I am clueless as to why but it does not support the comment above. Have never dehumidified this boat and other than the pilothouse windows when we are cooking in Winter, no condensation anywhere.