Discover the Best Yacht Construction

For the purposes of this article it is beneficial to understand a few basic facts concerning how fibre glass superyacht are constructed, their typical strengths and weaknesses and most importantly what are the visible signs that manifest themselves to the owner, such as stress cracks, de-lamination, osmosis and so forth. Fibreglass boat hulls are generally composed of several laminations or layers of glass fibre cloths, impregnated with polyester, vinylester or epoxy resin. This is usually done by building a "female" mould and creating the fibreglass hull within by a series of stages.

The hull in yacht constructions is then usually re-enforced with more layers of glass and resin onto areas that are under stress and the whole hull sealed with a final layer of clear resin. The rest of the internal fittings such as roof, decks, bulkheads and keel are added when the finished hull is released from the mould. Often in fibreglass hulls, wooden components have been used to reinforce areas, such as galleys and so on. Often, the wood is subject to water exposure and swells, eventually causing rot and decomposition.

Many modern boats have been constructed using internal cores together with resins. These can be polyurethane foam, end grain balsa cores and many lightweight racing hulls are using various lightweight "honeycomb pattern" materials. These materials decrease the weight of the hull, of superyacht often with very little strength loss. Also, the use of "closed cell" foam cores combined with epoxy resins has safe guarded many of these yacht constructions from early failures but all must be subject to high quality and standards, especially where deck installations and fittings are concerned, due to repeated high loading.

Just because the hull is underwater does not necessarily mean it will degrade any faster but in the case of poor maintenance, hidden factors may be at work. Lack of anti-fouling procedures allows marine growths to proliferate. Barnacles are a sure-fire gel coat killer if they are allowed to remain undisturbed at work!