I am basing my thoughts here having since 1973 lived aboard boats for 98% of the time over this time period. I have had the opportunity to have experienced hundreds of different designs in all kinds of conditions from sailboats to small powerboats.
All materials have their place in boat design, construction, and engineering if used properly.
Today in the flats skiff market several materials and building methods in my opinion are used as advertising tools to lure potential buyers by touting the materials greatness alongside their company’s name and by association hoping to glean some build credibility.
During my time at Hells Bay Boatworks Hal and I wrote together all our advertising lingo. We used words like vacuum bagging, Kevlar/carbon construction, patent pending, etc through out our sales pitches.
We advertised all our hulls in a basic eglass construction version and then a Kevlar carbon one at greater cost.
When asked I always said just go with the eglass build. Explaining that the Kevlar skin would aid in impact resistance only.
In reality 1 layer of 10 oz Kevlar cloth was laid in the outer skin only and a strip of carbon Unidirectional cloth was laid down the top of the stringer. Carbon was used at times in other places under the deck depending on the client and the build.
No mater how I explained it everyone went with the more expensive build.
The Kevlar and carbon cost difference verse regular Eglass was about $95.00 to us.
When I came up with what became the Waterman series of skiffs these hulls had to cost less so we had to take out more stuff.
So out went the core in the upper hull sides and the build was just 18oz roving and 1-1/2 oz. Matt.
No Kevlar option.
These two build types have it seems held up pretty well over the past 20 years.
Fast forward to today’s market of several builders trying to outdo the ole Whiprays old school building methods. I designed this skiff to be light yet strong using basic materials and user friendly methods that anyone off the street could be taught to build. What made these skiff builds really work well was it was a simple concept of a monocoque build putting hull skin thicknesses in place where it was needed and the rest using common sense elsewhere, and having a good hull shape to mold all this into.
Today finds Carbon and Carbon blends all the rage. Builders using and touting these magic materials are going on about how much lighter their hulls are. Yes they are lighter by 50 or so pounds from their previous builds but they are still way heavier than the Whipray and it’s later sisters originally built at Hells Bay. By many, many lbs.
To me the original micro skiffs started with the Challanger skiffs, Super Skiffs, Maverick Marage, and then the Whipray which introduced super light weight design and engineering compared to its predecessors.
By not taking the commonsense approach to build engineering and practice you can end up with a nightmare.
Look at the above hull build as one example. It’s an all carbon vacuum infused hull. Look at the sharp edges of the core being put into place onto the dry outer skin. Now you can see the inner all carbon skin cloth is in place.
The final photo shows a finished hull that has been infused over the sharp edged core with the worker leaning over its hull.
You can clearly see the core was not tapered to allow the carbon cloth to lay and flow over the cores sharp edges evenly as it’s supposed to. It’s an industry standard to taper all core edges starting from the day the core method was developed. This is a step that has not been used in ignorance by everyone in that shop or as a timesaving cost, cutting out a step in the build process.
What will happen as we all know carbon is very brittle and when bent at a slight angle against a corner it will crack and fail. A hull built like seen above has the potential to fail all along those unfaired sharp core edges.
If built to military specs this hull would be discarded. In America’s cup sailboats this would be laughable.
Carbon is a great material if used properly. In skiff design I would not use it except in certain places like around stringers, bottom of the stern, deck beams etc. I have recently used carbon 12” Wide uni cloth in my last two skiff builds that were solid skin hulls under the stringers. Works great there.
An all carbon hull will be a very rigid unforgiving jumpy feel at rest and underway compared to a regular eglass hull. Not for me. Even if I get the material for free.
In sailboats built properly you have to be very good on your feet at rest because they are so springy it’s like being on a trampoline with your kids.
Kevlar cloth can add impact resistance to a skin over the same weight eglass cloth. The weight savings is minimal between the two. It has no abrasion resistance. Any skiff built with a Kevlar skin on the inside or worse a Kevlar-Carbon blend saw you coming. A waste of $ to no use to the skiff and to you.
Basalt cloth is new to me and I will be using it soon so will get back with what I see. On paper it looks to be a good alternative to Kevlar, eglass for abrasion and sound and increased stiffness over eglass.
I have never used Ennegra blends, I have always stayed away from blends because I see no sense in having one cloths stiffness work against another’s lower stiffness in the same layer of skin. To me it’s like locking your fingers together with someone else’s who you know can break your fingers no problem if bending just a bit.
I hate all biaxel weaves and cloths for light weight skiff construction. Not enough space here to show and explain all the failures I have come across using it.
So what this comes down to is, engineering first, then building details next, If your aim is to be in the light weight top end micro skiff world.
I will in my coming book have all the info to explain from my point of view and from the industry's to help understand the options out there today.
The best clue about a skiff salespersons hands on knowledge to me is by how much glue, resin are on its clothes and the shape its hands are in.
