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Location: MN | If an aluminum boat and fiberglass boat have the same dimensions will they both drift and handle the same in the wind? Dimensions including hull weight, engine, height of sides, depth of hull, etc, all being equal. If the specs are the same between two boats, I would imagine they would be pushed around the same / boat control the same on windy days. A good friend is buying a new boat and is debating the aluminum vs. fiberglass for fishability and boat control in wind. In the past I believed fiberglass had less drift and better handling in windy conditions, but for reasons stated above I question if this is true.
Edited by Mak51 3/17/2011 9:19 PM
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Posts: 158
| Drift the same. The catch is they never are the same in all regards.
Boats of exact dimensions won't weight the same.
Kind of like one of those what weighs more, 50lbs of lead or 50lbs of feathers. They are the same. But not likely to be ever encountered. |
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Location: MN | LonLB - 3/17/2011 8:48 PM
Kind of like one of those what weighs more, 50lbs of lead or 50lbs of feathers. They are the same. But not likely to be ever encountered.
Exactly |
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Posts: 717
Location: Grand Rapids, MI | I have an 18' fiberglass, and I feel like I am always struggling with the wind more than any other boat. I've met some of my buddies on the water out in the middle of the lake and I am always drifting away from them. They all have aluminum. One of the guys boats is the same length as mine, and is a little taller. I figured his would blow away faster, especially being 500lbs lighter. But his boat stayed almost still, and my boat was blowing away like I had my trolling motor set on level 4. Confuses the heck outta me.... |
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Posts: 3480
Location: Elk River, Minnesota | Much of that drift can be due to the style of boat you have... If the boat is more of a v-hull from front to back, it will sit lower in the water, thus will have less tendency to move around as much in wind since the lower center of hull tends to help keep the boat still.
Now...take a boat that has more of a flat bottom, it will sit higher in the water, and will be affected more by wind since there is less resistance to keeping it in place. A classic example of this would be a v-hull aluminum to a John boat or bass style aluminum boat (like the first aluminum bass tracker boats)
Steve |
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Posts: 994
Location: Minnesota: where it's tough to be a sportsfan! | we did allot of work back in the 80's with AL. boats to the point of even adding ballast tanks to control drifting. It was determined we could not come up with a safe marketable product. So the next thing we did was re-arrange the weight we had to work with inside the boat. We found in all of our experiments the hull style as mentioned above and then the side height of the boats make the differences. Generally speaking if your AL boat weighs in as much as a glass rig your AL is sunk and filled with water.
I have a bass style boat and my buddy has a 690. The higher sides on his rig makes it drift easier. I'd say budget is of first concern in looking at a rig. Nothing wrong with a super Aluminum boat, I still own those also. Horsepower wise a AL pushes allot cheaper than a glass rig does and tows cheaper too. |
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Posts: 32884
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | 'Generally speaking if your AL boat weighs in as much as a glass rig your AL is sunk and filled with water.'
Are you saying a 20' glass boat weighs much more than a comparable 20' aluminum? |
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Posts: 3480
Location: Elk River, Minnesota | I'd hope not...they are almost the same these days... Fiberglass hulls have gotten a bunch lighter over the years... |
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Posts: 536
| hmmm, I always thought fiberglass boats weighed so much more and that is why they sat so much lower in the water, I know it's about shape too but I thought the weight was a huge part? |
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Posts: 158
| VMS - 3/18/2011 7:30 PM
I'd hope not...they are almost the same these days... Fiberglass hulls have gotten a bunch lighter over the years...
Some have. Some haven't
Aluminum boats on the other hand have gotten much heavier. There are a bunch of aluminum boats that weigh as much as fiberglass boats. But they usually carry a big profile. |
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Posts: 32884
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | So do the frp boats of the same size...
A formed hull without any major surface irregularities will run faster and use less fuel given a reasonable design and near equal deadrise. Many new riveted aluminum hulls are formed to include a set of pretty sophisticated lift strakes and a pad, but will not run as efficiently or a fast as their frp cousins.
Boats that drift fast have little wetted surface, perhaps little deadrise, and perhaps correspondingly high sides to catch the wind. |
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