Fiberglass Boat Building - The Advantages and Disadvantages

When building a boat the usual principle that should be applied is its light weight as well as durability.  The lighter your boat is the faster the speed.  For this purpose people seem to choose aluminum boats in large numbers since aluminum is a light metal and can take any shape easily.

For this matter it does not mean that boats made of other metals like steel, wood and fiber glass have been sidelined.  They too are put to great use, especially the fiber glass boats because of their immense stability and exclusive durability.

Though fiber glass boats are expensive they are a one time investment and have a lot of advantages. To name a few of the advantages, the first point to be noted is the maintenance costs.  Since the material used is fiber glass you have no worry whether the hull is being corroded in salt water.  This would never happen as it would in wooden boats.

Though in aluminum boats too you don’t face this difficulty, yet the possibility of the bottom getting damaged while in transit and thus getting a hole at the bottom should be feared.

A fiberglass boat takes much less time to build than any other metal boat.  The reason is that it has just one mould and with this mould you can build many boats in a short while.  Since the hull is a single mould the need to fix it together does not arise and hence no nailing or fixing is required.

At the same time it does have a few disadvantages as well.  As mentioned earlier, they are expensive because the fiberglass that is used for its construction should be imported and hence you should pre-plan the shape of your boat before ordering the mould.  This leaves you with not many choices of designs.

You can’t attempt to design it by yourself; you surely would need one or more skilled technicians to help you with it.  Finally fiber glass has a poor resistance to chemicals and if you happen to be boating near factories that let out chemical effluents into the water, your chances of damaging your boat is high.

Bear these simple suggestions in mind when deciding on a fiber glass boat.  While having many advantages they do have a few disadvantages as well.  Make a decision and check your budget, if you feel you can manage a fiberglass boat and you are surely not going to use it near a chemical polluted area, a fiber glass boat is the perfect choice since it is a one time investment with low cost maintenance.