Like Marmite, composite workboats have till now either been ‘love or hate’, however, there may be room to change a few minds, writes Stevie Knight. Many people might think composites constructions are fine for leisure, but wouldn’t want to touch them for tough commercial builds.
But composite builders disagree and there’s rising interest – take Norco’s landing of the contract for over 30 of the MoD’s 11m to 15m workboats. To start with, there’s the somewhat over-simple idea that metal is more robust. This isn’t the whole story by any means. Firstly, as David Kendall, founder of Optima Projects and the engineer behind most of CTruk’s vessels explained: “The issue with aluminum is when you weld, you get a huge reduction in strength.
Read more> Beneath the surface: The present and future of composite workboats
thumbnail courtesy of maritimejournal.com
