A Little Knowledge about Yacht Materials

Before the late 1940s, almost all leisure boats were built from wood. Without careful and sustained maintenance, these yachts often leak, rot, and even disintegrate.

Although fiberglass was invented as a high-quality insulation material in the 1930s, it was not until after World War II that factories innovatively applied this material to yacht construction. By reasonably laminating fiberglass and resin, it is used to construct hulls, decks, and various components.

FRP boats

In addition to the advantages of low relative density and high specific strength, fiberglass also has good dielectric properties, no reflection of radio waves, good microwave transmittance, acid and alkali resistance, simple molding process, sound insulation, insulation, and low thermal conductivity. Fiberglass with a sandwich structure has superior insulation and sound insulation performance, such as the sandwich structure used by the Leopard catamaran in the United States.

Early fiberglass yachts had some problems, mainly related to the resin used in factories, but by the late 1950s, better synthetic resins were developed, and the quality of yachts was correspondingly improved. Since then, materials and production processes have been constantly improving. The reason why yacht factories like fiberglass is because yachts are made from molds, which are reusable. This also means that the factory can produce a series of yachts more easily and cheaply, and this is important for a unified level of racing sailing.

Comparison of two types of glass fibers: the glass fiber on the left is significantly thinner and lighter, but its stiffness is smaller than that on the right

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