Frequently Asked Questions

What's with the name?

People remember RED.  

There's no question which boat is us.  It's an advantage to have a distinctive boat when expecting guests ("Which of the 100 white boats in the anchorage is yours?") or when communicating with officials.

We learned when traveling in foreign lands that a simple name is best.  You can easily learn the word for the color RED (rojo, rouge, kulokura, damudamu, whatever).  

If we ever ran into trouble, it would be far easier to communicate the simple name RED than some cute but long name, or the worst yet, the Celtic name of one yacht we encountered years ago.  We listened one day in Alaska when this hapless fellow tried to make a phone call over VHF radio using the marine operator.  It was completely hopeless; the operator was completely unable to figure out the boat name, even when he spelled it.  

The last reason is, you pay by the letter when purchasing the decal to apply your boat name to the hull.  RED only cost $27, so we saved a few bucks there...  Just kidding!

What's RED made of?

Believe it or not, this is the Number One question we're asked.  Steel.  We've answered this one countless times; most people never imagined that a steel yacht could look so good, and that there's no evidence of rust.

How thick is the plating?

RED's hull is 3/16" thick mild steel, and her deck is 10 gauge mild steel; a shade over 1/8" thick.  This is far stronger than necessary.  If you don't believe me, wander down to the local welding shop and buy a piece of 10 gauge, say, 2 feet square.  It'll only cost you a few dollars.  Take it home and try to deform it.  Use a sledge hammer, vise, whatever.  You'll be amazed how strong steel, is.

How much filler is used to get the hull so fair?

None.  A couple of coats of a spray-on high-build primer were applied prior to the topcoats, but that's it.  If you look at the construction photos, you can see why RED's hull didn't need fairing.

Why steel?

Two principal reasons; strength and watertightness.  We've heard of  many steel vessels that have run up on reefs or even been squashed between a ship and a wharf, that remained watertight and were successfully salvaged with little more than a few dents and scratched paint.

Because the hull/deck is a welded one-piece structure, there are no leaks.  One of the things that bugged us about our Valiant were the leaks that showed up here and there after a difficult passage, because the boat flexed.  This doesn't happen with RED. 

Why didn't you use Cor-Ten steel?

Cor-Ten steel is a high-tensile alloy that has the interesting characteristic of being corrosion-resistant - sort of.  

Cor-Ten rusts quickly on the surface but unlike mild steel, this impervious rust layer then protects the underlying steel, preventing further corrosion.  This makes Cor-Ten good for structural use in buildings and bridges, but it isn't any better for boatbuilding than mild steel, as far as corrosion is concerned.  

Cor-Ten is also more difficult to work with because it doesn't bend - that's the high-tensile bit.

Isn't steel awfully heavy?

In relative terms, no.  RED weighs about 20 tons fully loaded with a couple of tons of personal gear, tools, spares, water, and fuel.  This compares favorably with other vessels in her size range, other than high-tech composite vessels.  

It's true that a small steel boat (say, 30 feet) would likely be a bit heavier than a fiberglass boat of the same size, but hull weight drops rapidly as a percentage of total vessel weight as boats get larger.  In our size range, there isn't a significant difference.

How about performance?

RED performs as well as any vessel in her class.  We rarely turn less than a 150 mile day on passages, and usually average 170-180 miles/day in tradewind conditions.  This is about what you'd expect in any vessel with a comparable waterline length.

Our fastest passage was 600 miles from Papeete, Tahiti, to Aitutaki, Cook Islands, in 74 hours, which is very close to 200 miles/day.  This was in reinforced trade winds, 25 to 35 knots with higher gusts and rough seas.  We might have done better but we were having some autopilot drive problems (since remedied) and couldn't drive her as fast as we could have.

RED excels going to windward.  Her stiffness, fine entry, and moderate displacement allow her to power along in conditions that would have stopped our Valiant 40.  

I've seen lots of rusty steel boats, what's different about RED?

Steel boats have gotten a bad name because most of them are built by amateurs who have never built (or even sailed) a boat before,  are unfamiliar with steel boatbuilding (and often even steelworking) methods, and who are trying to save money by doing it themselves.  They're learning as they go, and the result is about what you'd expect.

Professionally-built hulls are a completely different animal, as a quick tour of any vessel built by Waterline Yachts will reveal.  There is absolutely no comparison between a hard-chine amateur-built steel boat, and one professionally built by Waterline Yachts.

Is rust a problem?

Not a problem.  RED's hull was sandblasted to white metal, inside and out, and then the inside was painted and sprayed with about 1-1/2" of foam insulation.  There's no condensation other than in the bilge (and even then, only in cold areas).

The outside of the hull above the waterline, the bilge, and the inside of the lazarette were sprayed with molten zinc; in essence, galvanized.  A very high-grade Devoe epoxy barrier-paint system is applied inside and out before the interior foam or exterior topcoats are applied.  

We've picked up the odd scratch along the way, and I can assure you that because of the zinc coating, they don't lead to rust.  All you need to do is touch any scratches up (for looks, primarily) when it's convenient.

Isn't a metal boat noisy?

Not if it's properly insulated.  RED is considerably quieter down below than our Valiant 40 Achates, and we're often amused when people wander by and tap the hull to try to figure out what it is.  Because of the insulation, there's just a dull "thunk" that sounds exactly like a really heavily-built fiberglass boat.  That really confuses 'em!

Are there special maintenance issues?

No, we've found RED easier to maintain than our fiberglass boats.  The paint system completely protects the steel to the extent that our hull zincs last for years.

The Awlgrip paint system doesn't need waxing.

In other words, maintenance is similar to that for any other hull material.

Unlike aluminum, by the way, you don't need to use special paints to prevent corrosion.  Regular copper-based bottom paint (we use Devoe ABC) works great.

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