The last five years has seen a major change in the designs and build of new power boats. boatbuilding, in the past few years, has indeed, come a long way. If you own a boat and haven’t bought it during the last 5-6 years or so, you have missed a great design revolution.
Let’s take a look at some of the changes that have happened during the recent years:
Hull Design
The hull designs have undergone subtle changes and these changes have produced great performance benefits. All these weren’t previously possible. Due to this change, the newer boats move a little more efficiently.
Cornering
More than hull designs, the biggest change has been in the cornering.
Flat turns are common to the new generation of small as well as mid-sized floating vessels. This change was first noticed in the 21 foot long production boat constructed by Hinterhoeller. Hinterhoeller’s performance was startling as compared to other boats in its category constructed more or less during the same time period. It was smoother and faster than most others. The design of Hinterhoeller gained popularity in Eastern Canada, and almost all small boats today are based on the same design.
The New Age Small Boats
The newer boats have been designed and developed with the help of extensive research, model testing and development. Though, boats made on narrower designs are faster and more efficient, they lack on stability. The newer boats have been made wider than normal in order to ensure stability. Efficiency and speed has been insured through newer innovations in boat engine designs.
Trends in the Marine Industry
Marine industry until recent times was stuck with narrow boat designs, but after a lot of research it came to a conclusion that wider boats are better than narrower ones in more than one way.
Steel or Aluminum
This has been a topic of debate for quite some time until the following few points were considered.
What you need to know is that steel may be equally stronger than aluminum but is almost 35% to 40% heavier than aluminum. On the contrary, aluminum, besides its strength and low weight may not be able to withstand collisions with rocks or ice.
In order to make sure that the vessel stays light as well as strong enough to withstand all that Mother Nature may throw at it during a voyage, an alloy of steel and aluminum was considered to be the best option.
The weight of the hull structure, however, is not at all an issue with larger vessels.
There is one small problem! Unlike steel, vessels made of aluminum or alloys are subject to ‘fatigue’ failure. In order to make sure that such problems are kept at bay, an alloy vessel needs to have its endurance limits considered carefully for times when there will be vibrations, not only at the engine but also at other high-stress points such as chain plates.
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