Oh where to start! Canada has a reputation for let us say "dropping the ball" in the area of engineering especially when we become involved in projects which have great potential and are world class. I remind you of the example of the Avro Arrow which is also covered in another page in this website. Add ferrocement boats to the list. But may of you may have absolutely no idea of what these things are so lets start off with a definition.
Ferrocement in boat construction is a method of building the hull with a skeleton of metal (called the armature) onto which( 7-8) layers of metal fencing are attached followed by encasing it in a thin layer of concrete. The resulting structure for a vessel of approximately 40 feet would be about 1 inch thick.
There have been a huge amount of opinions expressed about ferrocement and having owned such a vessel for over 20 years, I am of the opinion that most of the expressions have been absolute total and complete bullshit. I won't even bother to argue with them because it would do no good. After a while it becomes an exercise in frustration!
What I will say is that ferrocement is a good boat building material in that the resulting hulls are impervious to rot or rust or fiberglass pox and they have proven themselves in countless long deep sea voyages and in providing living quarters for mariners for nearly a half century. Some hulls were built by amateurs and some mistakes were made which made those hulls unsuitable and gave the medium a bad reputation. But the well made boats provided terrific service and have passed the tests of time and use. Although labor intensive to build the materials themselves are not considered to be expensive compared to other boatbuilding materials. Construction is within the realm of the dedicated home builder although the plastering stage needs to be done by professionals to get a good and safe finish.
In the late 60's and early 70's Canada led the world in ferrocement construction techniques and design the main Canadian Firm being Samson Marine Designs Enterprises out of Vancouver. John Samson led a team of naval architects and builders who produced some of the best ferro boats and designs in the world.
Editors Note With deepest regrets I inform you that John Samson passed away June 10th 2009 after a long battle with kidney disease. John was a leading authority on ferrocement construction and a friend to thousands of Mariners including me. We shall miss him!
For a few short years Canada was on the leading edge of ferrocement development thanks to SMDE. And what did the government do to support this new industry and assist with this new technology? Nothing. There was nobody in government who could see the possibilities, the trend or the potential of the idea. When SMDE went out of business so did the entire ferrocement industry in Canada and by the late 70's it was all over.
But was it?
You see, several ferrocement boats were constructed. I recall looking up the number of registered ferro hulls in the Transport Canada blue book registry and there were nearly 509 of them. Over the years the poorly constructed hulls tended to fade away but that left the ones that were constructed properly. And now nearly 50 years later we are seeing some very interesting facts emerge.
Many well constructed ferro hulls are still providing good service decades after other vessels built from other hull materials have long since reached the end of their life spans. Again another opportunity for our government to get involved and perhaps do a bit of non destructive testing on the remaining hulls to gain some knowledge about this medium. Are they doing this? Absolutely not. Has any engineering student picked ferrocement as his area of expertise given the good body of factual information available today? No.
In Canada as time marches on we have fewer and fewer experts on Ferrocement simply because they are getting older each year and approaching the end of their life times. A young man of say 30 fifty years ago is 80 today. In ten years or slightly more most of the main players in the original ferrocement boom will be all gone. With then will go not only the theoretical knowledge some of which is left behind in books but the practical knowledge one can only get by building these vessels. Anyone who has built a boat will tell you a lot of mistakes are made on the first one and the second and next boats tend to go a lot smoother and faster from lessons learned.
One of the objectives of this website is to identify bullshit where it exists in our society and offer alternatives. In the case of ferrocement construction it is clear that this is a medium with tremendous potential both proven and yet to be discovered. It is also clear that 40 or 50 years ago Canada was a world leader in the topic. Further it is clear that the state of Canada's marine industry is in one word pathetic for a country of our size with a long coastline that we enjoy. It's time for some government investment to establish the following:
1. A manufacturing plant to produce ferrocement hulls and to fine tune their design and construction techniques. The hulls would be made available to boat builders to purchase and finish. Expertise in the form of inspections of the work and certification of the construction would be available to ensure the quality of the finished products. I believe it is fair to say that ferrocement hulls were never successfully mass produced due to the high labour inputs- I suspect that this problem could be solved and the labour component could be greatly reduced if some more engineering were done in this area and if a suitable production facility was obtained.
2. A method of transferring the expertise of this plant into Canadian society by way of books, videos, plans, best practices, standards, inspection techniques. One of the best ways of achieving this is to assign post graduate engineering and marketing students to the project so that a body of theoretical and practical information would be generated.
3. A method of protecting Canadian design by taking out patents and registering industrial designs associated with ferrocement construction techniques.
4. A method of integrating ferrocement into Canadian industry so that jobs and products are created resulting in a trained workforce and the production of wealth.
In my opinion there is a potential industry waiting to happen in Canada. All it needs is a small amount of help to get it going and established and it will then run itself. Will it happen? Absolutely not. Could it happen? Sure!
Interested in ferrocement? Here are some good links for you and a warning. As previously stated most people who express an opinion about ferrocement know nothing of the medium and simply spout bullshit. Much of it has been regurgitated for several decades and it is difficult to obtain up to date information on the medium. Listen to them and then find out if they ever owned a ferrocement boat if they ever built one or cruised on one or just what their claim to expertise is. In the worst cases some will spout off and then actually admit they know nothing of the subject and are just repeating what they heard. Hit them with a stick. The information you will find on the links is pretty good although keep an eye on the dates - a lot of it is referring to events which occurred twenty, thirty or more years ago.
And if you look you can occasionally find some real deals on used ferrocement boats as they normally sell at a big discount compared to vessels of other construction mediums. But be careful you don't buy one of those bad ones that were never made right the first time - I had one of those and there was a bonding problem between outer and inner layers of cement because of the way it was constructed and it did prove to be a disaster. (yes I did learn these things the hard way!)
LINKS
The World of Ferrocement boats probably the best website on ferrocement
Transport Canada Vessel Registration Query system listing of Canadian registered ferrocement boats
How to Build a Ferrocement Boat in Easy Stages Excellent pictures of the process of building a 57 foot ferrocement vessel
Ferrocement.com A good website with lots of useful links includes other ferrocement structures in addition to boats
Hartley Boat Plans UK The oldest of its type including ferrocement plans and plans by Samson Marine (Canada)
Peter Freeman (Canada) solo navigated his 32 foot Hartley ferrocement Laivina non stop around the world holding the record for vessels under 50 feet.
Please take me right back to the index eh