Is Carbon Fibre Really a Good Idea for Cruising Boats?!?!?

December 18, 2024 by Sailing Tips | Language: EN Play Time: 00:04:17 | SAILING YOUTUBERS

Carbon fibre construction has become almost universal in high-performance sailing, and it’s easy to understand why, as it’s incredible strength, stiffness and light weight have enabled boats like this IMOCA 60 to sail more than 600 nautical miles or 1,100km in 24 hours - in the past this kind of performance was only possible with much larger monohulls or multihulls.

Given this it’s not surprising to see carbon fibre construction making its way into production boats, and two of the most watched sailing channels, Sailing La Vagabonde and Gone with the Wynn’s have both taken delivery of all carbon cruising boats in the last year or so.

But while carbon fibre construction is not only appropriate, but almost necessary in high-performance racing boats, it does have a number of dark secrets which cause me to question whether it really belongs in cruising boats, as the Wynn’s have come to discover as they encounter a myriad of issues with their new boat, and others have as well.

Carbon fibre is about five times lighter than steel, 50% lighter than aluminum, and 30% lighter than glass fibre, and because it is so strong you can get away with using much less of it, and this weight savings has a dramatic effect on sailing performance.

But when you add the weight of all your earthly possessions you seriously blunt the performance benefits and still have to deal with all the drawbacks. Carbon fibre costs 10-15 times more than glass fibre, it emits 15-20 times more CO2 during its production, and it requires highly skilled labour to build and repair.

In addition to being 30% lighter than glass fibres, carbon saves even more weight by using less cloth and resin than fibreglass, so the layup of materials needs to be done to a very high standard and is less forgiving of errors in workmanship, as Riley and Elayna found with this crack in their boat.

The Wynn’s also experienced first hand how errors in workmanship could lead to significant galvanic corrosion of their engine anodes, propellers, deck hardware, and even anchor and chain.

Stray current due to wiring errors can cause rapid corrosion of propellers and shafts on any boat, especially if you’re plugged into shore power in a marina, and it could even be your neighbour’s boat that is the problem.

But such extensive corrosion of deck fittings, anchors and chains in only a few months is almost unheard of on fibreglass boats.

The problem with carbon is not just that it conducts electricity, but that it does such a good job of attracting the electrons of other metals that it is frequently used in batteries.

So when a boat builder drills a hole for a bolt to secure a deck fitting, and a piece of carbon fibre comes in contact with a bolt you have a battery, and LOTS of corrosion.

The solution is for the builder to ensure that the carbon doesn’t come in contact with any other metals.

This is such a pain that many carbon boat builders use integral composite fittings and avoid metal altogether. Or carbon and Dyneema soft padeyes that are stronger than steel and also contain no metal.

Because carbon fibre is incredibly stiff, carbon boats are also more brittle than boats made with fibreglass as Alex Thompson learned when he encountered structural damage in the 2020 Vendee Globe.

By comparison fibreglass is much more elastic and can deform twice as far and rebound back to its original shape without breaking, which is another negative for cruising when the word’s oceans are littered with hull-crushing debris.

And if you still think you can sleep soundly on a carbon cruising boat, just know that all that carbon stiffness is incredibly good at transmitting every single sound throughout the boat.

So as cool as these carbon cruising boats are, I think I prefer to keep carbon for racing and use fibreglass for cruising, except for maybe a few key areas requiring extra stiffness.

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