AluminumAlloyBoats.com

Our Spring boat show is going "green" (kind of funny since it is a powerboat show). They have asked vendors for info on any items that they may have that would be friendly to the environment. I think my Black Lab is the perfect fuel efficient item to add to their "green" list. So I need to collect soem facts/stats and I need your help. Have any info on:

how you all are doing on fuel consumption?

do you have any numbers of your fuel consumption compared to NON ALLOY boats?

And just in general do you have any good info on plate alloy/aluminum as a material being environmentally friendly (say vs. NON ALLOY or that aluminum is a natural material that is the most abundant in teh earth's crust)?

What other boat is totally "RECYCLABLE".....that's all they need to know!

Never did any "anal performance numbers", that are so commonly asked for by the so called guru's. But more like a real life WALLET tests.

In all RPM ranges from idle to 4,500 RPM (the max I ever go), doing my normal fishing I can get 18 hrs of usage on 30 gallons, in my 26' BLM CC with a wide variety of loads. 2-4 people.

And since Oct 18th 2006 when my boat drove up to my house to be delivered, till right now, today I have put 420 hrs on it, in the last 16 months.

That's what.....25-26 hrs per month. So as you can see I can fish a really long time (2 months) on 60 gallons.

I fish from flat water to 2-4 foot seas, and runs consist of a maxium of 6 miles. Mostly Inlet and river fishing.

Presently at: $2.99 per gallon locally on my last trip to the gas station, that's 2 months of fishing on $179.40

I'd call that a thrifty running charter fishing business, huh? Compared to those guys that use that in all one day! And need 6 friends to "chip-in".

All thanks to "Alloy & Honda"......and with a lot of room to fish, versus a most F'glass boats the same size.

How really better, could I do?

Beth, at a cruz I pull right at 5 MPG out of my Pacific 23 witha Honda BF225 .

With the ALLOY boat I have NO need for waxes and polishes [ THat contain Petrolium Products ] that may get in the water system.

With ALLOY I don't have to have ANY PAINT on my hull in the water [ Trailer Boater Here ]

With ALLOY once the boat is built there is NOT much need to use any more consumables [ Gases, electicity, Material ] to maintain the boat.

With ALLOY , the boat is lighter and CAN CARRY more weight = more efficent.

With ALLOY the boat itself will last longer than most other boats [ Look for a PLATE BOAT on the used maket ]so people tend to keep them longer.

With ALLOY the resale is AWESOME [ Most people only sale there boat to move up in size ]

I could go on and on but will let others add more and as CGRAND say's...................."Chicks Dig the Metal"

awesome! You all are going to put NON ALLOY boat builder out of biz.

Thnx!

Oh yeah......furry NON ALLOY boats make for hazardous worker conditions.
And it makes me itchy, like when I crawl thru my attic. :lol:

Aluminum is the second most prevalent element in the earth's crust after oxygen. There is no "shortage" of aluminum!

I am going to put a recycle emblem on each side of the boat for the show and I have to do a write up with all of these points for the boat show managers.

Thanks guys!!

Hey Beth , with a sealed bilge there is no bilge pump hence no bilge water [ fuel , trash,oil, etc ] pumped into the water.

And , if a Giant rock crushed your boat it can be RECYCLED

And aluminum doesn't emit any volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as it "cures" like glass boats do.

And there is a VERY GOOD chance that my ALLOY boat is made from recycled aluminum. :D

The boat show has wrapped up and the green push was a hit. Thanks to all of you for your input a couple of months ago. Press releases went out, photos were taken and articles were in print. A lot of good press for alloy!

I'll get some photos for y'all of what happens to NON ALLOY boats around here once they're "dead" and not of use anymore. Once I get down to Angoon, I can show you some great shots of a beach "graveyard" full of rotted NON ALLOY hulls... can't be good for the environment at all!

-Case

These "Green" people should be more concerned with what we're going to do with all the old "Green" Hybrid car batteries when they need replacing :D

To all

It is hard to know which is more green in producing an alloy or NON ALLOY boat without going through the analysis of total life-cycle, which includes production, life time, repairs, efficiency and disposal. We can only estimate such things without a lot of work. I still am leaning towards aluminum but by how much is hard to say. Just in case folks don't know here a little info about aluminum.

Although it is an abundant element in the earth's crust it does not exist in pure form. It will form oxides rather quickly. It was once consider more precious than gold because it was rare to find in pure form and no efficient way of purifying it existed. The Hall-Héroult process came along and enabled aluminum to be produced efficiently relative to any other means. However it consumes electricity to produce pure aluminum from ore. Electric power represents about 20 - 40% of the production cost. It is about 15 KWh/ kg or 33 KWh/ lb. On the high end in So Cal I pay ~ 26 cents/KWh so that amounts to about $7/lb in electricity if I were to buy my electricity from SCEC for aluminum production. Recycling uses about 5 % of the electricity but 15% of the aluminum is lost during that process.

Aside from being recyclable another thing to consider when getting an alloy boat is the raw material is made to a specifications that makes it very consistent. Thickness and the alloy composition is more tightly controlled by the raw material manufacturer. There is no additional chemistry the builder needs to perform to make the sheeting. While welding can also be suspect, errors and problems with the weld are easier to inspect in the building process. The waste material is also recyclable. (i.e. the cuttings from the plate).

Conversely with NON ALLOY, the process requires the builder to be the end manufacturer of the form. Thus the conditions of curing resins can be varied, difficult to control and the consistency of the final product difficult to QC by the builder. How does the builder know that he did not get a real brittle spot in the mold due to a localized over concentration of initiator which caused excessive cross linking? One would have to significantly validate the process to determine what the effect of the curing conditions upon overall strength and durability. I am not sure most builders can do that work on scaled-up boats. Certainly segregates can be done but builders probably rely on the resin manufactures for guidance. You may get significant day to day variations which don't show up until later.

I know one of the things that convinced me was looking at the boats that were restored at classicmako.com/projects. I did not want to end up with one of those boats.

Just my 2 cents

Richard

blacklabmarine wrote:Aluminum is the second most prevalent element in the earth's crust after oxygen. There is no "shortage" of aluminum!

Actually it is the third : The 8 most common elements in Earth’s crust (by mass):
46.6% Oxygen (O)
27.7% Silicon (Si)
8.1% Aluminum (Al)
5.0% Iron (Fe)
3.6% Calcium (Ca)
2.8% Sodium (Na)
2.6% Potassium (K)
2.1% Magnesium (Mg)

I just got done teaching my rocks and mineral unit to my 8th graders. Sorry...I am a geek. :D

Call me a shameless geek...............




Could not help myself.


Mark