There was a period when ferroconcrete was a popular choice for homebuilt sailboats. Until people gained experience with them. They used inexpensive materials but were labor intensive. And the problem was that while they were strong and durable, if built properly, it was impossible to determine whether they were built properly from an external inspection.
In the 1970's, a group of us constructed a ferro concrete yacht. It was ready for plastering when gale force winds bowled it over. We stood it back up but the beautiful lines were no longer. I pulled out of the build as my GF was pregnant. The boat got finished, looked okay and spent the next few years as a dive boat in the Pacific.
My 99 year old dad was a Merchant Marine officer in WW2. He was in port in the summer and concrete ship was in port with a friend from MM Academy on board. Dad visited his friend on the concrete ship. Dad wanted to see the engine room and while below a V1 hit the concrete ship destroying his friend's cabin. Dad told me the did not run concrete ships in cold waters and winter they were mostly used in the warm Caribbean. Dad said the only thing liked about the concrete ships is they had better sound insulation
There's some correlations here to concrete pool construction and Shotcrete projects. Lots of steel reinforcement, small aggregate, limited added water, high level placement consolidation. Racquet ball, hand ball court walls are/were built with lots of pencil rod & wire, covered with Portland cement rich plaster (concrete grout basically).
Powell River British Columbia. That's where the break water is in Canada ! Please come visit and see them !! It's a pretty amazing sight 😊 the whole sunshine coast is beautiful ! I promise you will not be disappointed. Lives here a long time and I'm still in awe when I see it ❤
The Guest Dock is next to the ferry terminal. That was a bouncy night. The Sunshine Coast is nice. Desolation sound, Princess Louisa, Squirrel Cove Lancelot Inlet. Great places to visit. Seeing the Sister ships to the Palo Alto was interesting as well. The Palo Alto is at Rio Del Mar, Santa Cruz County, California. Well what’s left of her. She is breaking up in the surf.
At 01:40 the list of ships includes one named SS Francois Hennebique. Where J-L Lambot (00:39) was the father of Ferro-Cement - Hennebique was the father of Reinforced-Concrete. Hennebique , or his licencees, built thousands of concrete structures in the UK including the famous Hennebique Bridge at Brooklands Circuit, Weybridge, the first purpose-built banked motor-racing circuit in the world. That bridge still survives, as does another Hennebique construction, the footbridge crossing the railway lines at Kew Gardens station.
@@theshellchannel Subscribed, I will check out to see if you have already done one of Ice Air Craft Carriers. After promising scale tests and the creation of a prototype on Patricia Lake, Jasper National Park, in Alberta, Canada, the project was shelved due to rising costs, added requirements, and the availability of longer-range aircraft and escort carriers which closed the Mid-Atlantic gap that the project was intended to address.
It is said that if you are crossing an ocean, the best ride you can get is in a ferro boat. The worst is in an aluminium or fibreglass one. This is because of the weight of the vessel. I believe the worlds largest barge is made of concrete. It was made in France and is used in conjunction with an oil platform off Africa.
A ship that floats like a log can reduce the weight penalty with concrete ships while swapping trains in one hour and would allow small islands to trade with the world.
i don't understand. do you mean car floats/rail barges? they already exist. i live in alaska and our railroad isn't connected to the rest of north america, we have a few barges with rail track on them to move rolling stock from seattle to here.
They are not made with concrete. The real name Farrocement. The process uses 2 or 3 different sizes of sand. Zero rocks. The process uses lots of pencil rod, very small rebar. Then expanded metal lath, you call it chicken wire. The object is to get the pencil rod and 5 layers of metal lath as thin as they can squeeze them together. A 65 foot cement boat we plastered had all 5 layers in less the a 3/8 inch thickness. The cement is the filler. If you want a book written on Farocement contact me I will give you the book. It was written in the late 70’s. We were a plastering company in the Portland area and we did 10 boats . What killed this process was the price of the rod and wire. The price shot up and it became cheaper to build out of Steel. The big company in California was Daniel cement boats. We traveled to California and met with them. At that time they had to get the sand only from a plant in Canada.
The ferrocement process is used only for smaller boats. The large ships mentioned in the video were made of reinforced concrete. I mention some of the books used in the video itself, but here they are: Survey of experience using reinforced concrete in floating marine structures. Ship structure committee. 1984. apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA162559.pdf Concrete ships historical notes concerning them and a discussion of the problems involved in their construction. University of Illinois. 1918. www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/51651/concreteshipshis00kirc.pdf Concrete Ships. University of Rhode Island. 1978. digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1120&context=ma_etds
a spy stealing plans for concrete ships doesn't mean the germans wanted to build them. maybe they did, but to me it's just as likely they wanted to know the weaknesses to properly target them.
Still only roughly half as efficient, so would still be worse than the steel one. My question would be, what about if you factor in maintenance? Long term isn't it cheaper to have 2 concrete ships for the same cargo load as on steel one given they last 50+ years?
@ Good points! So much has changed since these ships were built that I think to compare cost estimates over a long term a completely new study would have to take place. The advancements in material technologies over the past century are remarkable and then some.
Another advantage is that you would no longer need to look where you were going. Leaving port, you could just ram everything out of your way, then carry on as if nothing had happened. LOL
@@wilsjane "Be one with the port. You are the port. You are feeling like a mobile pier. Where ever you travel in life, you are your rock." - Shia LaBeouf
παρα πολυ καλη ιδεα γιατι δεν κτιζουνε και τωρα τετοια πλοια? το κοστος τους δεν θα ειναι ουτε το 1/5και οταν βγαινουν εκτος να τα βυθιζουνε για τεχνικους υφαλους να γινοντα κατοικιες για ψαρια/αριστη ιδεα
Of all the things I learnt about WW2, this was somehow never one of them, thanks for the video.
Project Habakkuk?
if you thought concrete ships are cool, look up pykrete if you haven't heard of it. such a strange idea, it'll give you brain freeze for sure
UMO had a concrete canoe competition every year for their engineering students.
There was a period when ferroconcrete was a popular choice for homebuilt sailboats. Until people gained experience with them.
They used inexpensive materials but were labor intensive.
And the problem was that while they were strong and durable, if built properly, it was impossible to determine whether they were built properly from an external inspection.
If they are labour intensive,then they are expensive
@@vincentkosgei7166 That depends on how much your time is worth...
In the 1970's, a group of us constructed a ferro concrete yacht. It was ready for plastering when gale force winds bowled it over. We stood it back up but the beautiful lines were no longer. I pulled out of the build as my GF was pregnant. The boat got finished, looked okay and spent the next few years as a dive boat in the Pacific.
@vincentkosgei7166 Labor intensive only in the plastering phase, and unskilled labor.
@@howardsimpson489 Any idea if it is still afloat or now a dive destination?
My 99 year old dad was a Merchant Marine officer in WW2. He was in port in the summer and concrete ship was in port with a friend from MM Academy on board. Dad visited his friend on the concrete ship. Dad wanted to see the engine room and while below a V1 hit the concrete ship destroying his friend's cabin. Dad told me the did not run concrete ships in cold waters and winter they were mostly used in the warm Caribbean. Dad said the only thing liked about the concrete ships is they had better sound insulation
There's a small one abandoned on a river bank near where I live here in the UK
Where exactly?
There's a balance between the best product to use, versus the only product you can afford at the time.
This is one of those videos that makes you check to make sure it's not April 1st.
There's some correlations here to concrete pool construction and Shotcrete projects. Lots of steel reinforcement, small aggregate, limited added water, high level placement consolidation. Racquet ball, hand ball court walls are/were built with lots of pencil rod & wire, covered with Portland cement rich plaster (concrete grout basically).
Powell River British Columbia. That's where the break water is in Canada ! Please come visit and see them !! It's a pretty amazing sight 😊 the whole sunshine coast is beautiful ! I promise you will not be disappointed. Lives here a long time and I'm still in awe when I see it ❤
Very nice of you to promote your beautiful location, some tourism is beneficial though don't wish for too too much.
The Guest Dock is next to the ferry terminal. That was a bouncy night. The Sunshine Coast is nice. Desolation sound, Princess Louisa, Squirrel Cove Lancelot Inlet. Great places to visit.
Seeing the Sister ships to the Palo Alto was interesting as well. The Palo Alto is at Rio Del Mar, Santa Cruz County, California. Well what’s left of her. She is breaking up in the surf.
I had no idea about this.
Thank you
The wreckage of one ship is located a few yards off the shore of sunset beach in Cape May, New Jersey.
There's also a wreckage in Galveston Bay
At 03:11, I like how you danced nicely around saying that (unhelpful for UA-cam videos) "H" name.
"The moustached corporal" 😉
Seems like it could be viable for a houseboat that doesn't go very far.
At 01:40 the list of ships includes one named SS Francois Hennebique.
Where J-L Lambot (00:39) was the father of Ferro-Cement - Hennebique was the father of Reinforced-Concrete.
Hennebique , or his licencees, built thousands of concrete structures in the UK including the famous Hennebique Bridge at Brooklands Circuit, Weybridge, the first purpose-built banked motor-racing circuit in the world. That bridge still survives, as does another Hennebique construction, the footbridge crossing the railway lines at Kew Gardens station.
Cool, thanks for the story.
@@theshellchannel Subscribed, I will check out to see if you have already done one of Ice Air Craft Carriers.
After promising scale tests and the creation of a prototype on Patricia Lake, Jasper National Park, in Alberta, Canada, the project was shelved due to rising costs, added requirements, and the availability of longer-range aircraft and escort carriers which closed the Mid-Atlantic gap that the project was intended to address.
A canoe trip in Waupaca, Wisconsin had several concrete boats that took the customers to the start of the trip.
A lot of research has gone into this video !
It is said that if you are crossing an ocean, the best ride you can get is in a ferro boat. The worst is in an aluminium or fibreglass one. This is because of the weight of the vessel. I believe the worlds largest barge is made of concrete. It was made in France and is used in conjunction with an oil platform off Africa.
There have been developments in *Basalt* reinforcement. I think there are possible advantages for basalt in concrete ships.
A ship that floats like a log can reduce the weight penalty with concrete ships while swapping trains in one hour and would allow small islands to trade with the world.
i don't understand. do you mean car floats/rail barges? they already exist. i live in alaska and our railroad isn't connected to the rest of north america, we have a few barges with rail track on them to move rolling stock from seattle to here.
They are not made with concrete. The real name Farrocement. The process uses 2 or 3 different sizes of sand. Zero rocks. The process uses lots of pencil rod, very small rebar. Then expanded metal lath, you call it chicken wire. The object is to get the pencil rod and 5 layers of metal lath as thin as they can squeeze them together. A 65 foot cement boat we plastered had all 5 layers in less the a 3/8 inch thickness. The cement is the filler. If you want a book written on Farocement contact me I will give you the book. It was written in the late 70’s. We were a plastering company in the Portland area and we did 10 boats . What killed this process was the price of the rod and wire. The price shot up and it became cheaper to build out of Steel. The big company in California was Daniel cement boats. We traveled to California and met with them. At that time they had to get the sand only from a plant in Canada.
The ferrocement process is used only for smaller boats. The large ships mentioned in the video were made of reinforced concrete.
I mention some of the books used in the video itself, but here they are:
Survey of experience using reinforced concrete in floating marine structures. Ship structure committee. 1984.
apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA162559.pdf
Concrete ships historical notes concerning them and a discussion of the problems involved in their construction. University of Illinois. 1918.
www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/51651/concreteshipshis00kirc.pdf
Concrete Ships. University of Rhode Island. 1978.
digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1120&context=ma_etds
I never had heard of it.
I wonder what the math looks like if you use Glass fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC)?
nice. i expected that such boats would be way more than twice the weight of steel ships
a spy stealing plans for concrete ships doesn't mean the germans wanted to build them. maybe they did, but to me it's just as likely they wanted to know the weaknesses to properly target them.
FYI these all are ferro cement boats and ships. So I reality actually steel boats were cement is used.
Very interesting . Thanks a lot.
5:17 i thought that was the millenium falcon for a second
I wonder how the cost calculations would change if one of these were built today with a nuclear powerplant in place of a diesel one?
Still only roughly half as efficient, so would still be worse than the steel one. My question would be, what about if you factor in maintenance? Long term isn't it cheaper to have 2 concrete ships for the same cargo load as on steel one given they last 50+ years?
@ Good points! So much has changed since these ships were built that I think to compare cost estimates over a long term a completely new study would have to take place. The advancements in material technologies over the past century are remarkable and then some.
Another advantage is that you would no longer need to look where you were going. Leaving port, you could just ram everything out of your way, then carry on as if nothing had happened. LOL
@@wilsjane "Be one with the port. You are the port. You are feeling like a mobile pier. Where ever you travel in life, you are your rock." - Shia LaBeouf
What is that horrible noise in the background ? Is that 'music' ? Spoils what could be a great video.
Ironically AI has made me do more research than less of it. Because ever so often I see something like this and question if it’s true or not.😂
iv been l0king for info about these things, but its either hard to come by or im just lazy, good video 🐷🐖🐽
There really isn’t much material about them, especially technical data. The books are usually from the 1970s-80s, and some are even older than that.
It's just not boaty , , *** 👍 , , ferro boat s rust from day 1 , lime and steel don't mix , with salt water , ❤. , .
παρα πολυ καλη ιδεα γιατι δεν κτιζουνε και τωρα τετοια πλοια? το κοστος τους δεν θα ειναι ουτε το 1/5και οταν βγαινουν εκτος να τα βυθιζουνε για τεχνικους υφαλους να γινοντα κατοικιες για ψαρια/αριστη ιδεα