As part of our celebrations of Reinforced Plastics' 50th year of publication, George Marsh looks back at 50 years of composite boat building. Fifty years ago, if you wanted a yacht, it would be custom built for you, as a one-off, usually by fastening together hundreds of separate handcraft pieces of wood. But the boat building industry was about to jump ship from wood to a novel wonder material. Fibreglass, as it was generally known, offered the prospect of continuous monocoque structures that would start and stay watertight, along with ease of building whole series of identical boats. Fibreglass/ glass reinforced plastic (GRP) went on to transform boat building from a small-scale enterprise steeped in wood and tradition to what is rapidly becoming a commodity industry. Today even median earners can aspire to a new Jeanneau, Beneteau, Bavaria etc. Workboat numbers have multiplied alongside the ensuing leisure craft explosion.


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    Title :

    50 years of reinforced plastic boats


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Reinforced Plastics ; 50 , 9 ; 16-19


    Publication date :

    2006


    Size :

    4 Seiten, 6 Bilder




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English




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