[Public-List] Fascinating article on early day FG boat uilding

[Glenn]

Ahoy!

So I am rather tenuously clinging to remnants of my former nautical life during  my leisure hours here in the Arabian desert  town of  Abu Dhabi , and have somehow stumbled upon a most fascinating and seeming historically accurate online writeup regarding early day FG boat building.  

thought I would pass along the link, as it has prompted me to think about the most pressing nautical question about Albergs I can imagine. First the link:

http://www.proboat.com/wood-to-glass.html

Now to  the great Nautical mystery of the century: why did Carl Alberg and other early day FG naval architects and their builders actually produce such massively thick hulls?? 

By way of firing the first salvo so to speak, let me say Ive never really bought into the 1960's naval legend that  naval architects like Phil Rhodes, Alberg, and others simply built hulls to match the scantlings of similar size wood hulls.  This explanation aligns with the fantasy that early builders and architects didn't know about much about FG structural properties, so built to match wood scantlings, even though the US Navy apparently did serious FG research during WWII, and  produced FG craft with these same architects and builders, etc.  

So I wonder, by the time Palmer Johnson built the first Rhodes Bounty, and Whidby followed a few years latter with the Alberg 30, why build to such heavy scantlings when they obviously knew a lot about fiberglass from their experiences in WWII, AND likely heard a constant barrage of  sales pitches from Owens Corning and other Material suppliers mentioned in the above article???

I ve always thought it would be fascinating to track down the history of our stoutly built hulls, So am hoping   someone  could fill in the details and maybe identify some early day references or quote surviving Naval correspondence that could tell the tale - nautically speaking.

Thanks much!

Glenn 
Dolce 318


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