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FIBER W


North America and Europe are fiberglass and metallic destinations.  Nearly all of the yachts from there are constructed of fiberglass or metal.

 

Turkey is different.  Fiber-w rules supreme in Turkey.  What is fiber-w?  It's plain old-fashioned wood.

Modern sailors tend to scorn wooden boats.  They like their fiberglass yachts and may even tell you that it's maintenance free.  Their seductive fiberglass gospel sounds good, especially if your yacht is going to sail the calm seas of Marina Land ninety-nine percent of the time.  Fiberglass works extremely well for boats that spend their time in marinas.  But take those light displacement fiberglass yachts offshore for a couple of years, and you'll discover why so many real mariners still love fiber-w.

The sea has a habit of testing yachts to destruction.  The ocean doesn't care about your yacht, and it never tires of assaulting your hull with the full force of nature.  That's why fiber-w is often superior to fiberglass. When the chips are down, a lightly constructed fiberglass hull can fail, whereas, the same size wooden hull can flex forever without loss of strength.

Most people don't realize that when you flex a fiberglass panel it loses strength over time.  Laboratories can put a fiberglass panel in a machine that flexes the panel hundreds of thousands of times, and they can record the reduction in panel strength as a function of the number of times the panel flexes.  What they are doing is exactly what the ocean does to your yacht.  They are flexing a panel of fiberglass the way the ocean flexes the hull on your yacht. The only difference is that they know exactly how much weaker the hull becomes each time your hull flexes at sea.

Fiber-w is completely different; it's almost totally resistant to damage from forces that cause it to flex.  You can subject a wooden panel to a million cycles of flexion, and its strength remains undiminished.  That should not come as a great surprise, because there are trees blowing in the wind everywhere, and they experience trillions of flexing cycles without breaking.  Hurricane force winds may bend a tree over and even uproot it, but the tree trunk rarely breaks.  That's why we see giant trees that are five-hundred years old.  They're made of fiber-w, and wood fiber may bend, but it usually doesn't break.

Wood is susceptible to worms and dry rot, but it's not susceptible to damage from repeated cycles of flexing at sea.  Old time mariners loved wood because they could work it with their hands, and they could trust it to survive the most savage seas.  As a boat building material, it's unsurpassed, and if you take care of it, it will take care of you.

Take a look at these Turkish gulets made out of fiber-w.  They are awesomely beautiful and incredibly strong.  They can take a licking and keep on ticking for ten lifetimes if properly maintained.

If I was building a catamaran, I would construct the hull out of fiber-w and sheath it in fiberglass. The fiber-w would provide lifelong strength, and the fiberglass sheath would protect it from dry rot and toredo worms.

God didn't make fiberglass trees for a reason.  He didn't want to us live in a fiberglass jungle in which we we are always getting clobbered by fractured fiberglass trunks falling over on us.  Instead, He gave us a magnificent gift called wood.  Fiber-w is as good as it gets.

 

Life is good.

 


Log 1 Peter Pan Around the World
Log 2 Weapons of Mackerel Destruction
Log 3 Pirates of the Malacca Straits
Log 4 Kissing Cobras
Log 5 Debriosaurus Rex
Log 6 Go Ahead - Live Your Dreams

Log 7 The Man Who Built His House on a Rock
Log 8 Ambivalent Eagles
Log 9 One-Shovel Full at a Time
Log 10 Hitchhiker's Guide to Planet Earth

Log 11 Keeshond

Log 12 The Red Sea Blues

Log 13 Feel the Freedom

Log 14 The Danger Zone

Log 15 Lucky Man
Log 16 Dream Machines - Land Rover Defenders

Log 17 Trade Wind Dreams
Log 18 Logs With Fins
Log 19 Everywhere, Everything
Log 20 Shark Slayer Is History

Log 21 Viking Funeral - Burial at Sea
Log 22 Improbable and Impossible

Log 23 Keep on Trucking
Log 24 Dream Machines II
Log 25 Bodysurfing Whales
Log 26 Hitting the Wall
Log 27 Surviving the Savage Seas

Log 28 The Next Step
Log 29 Welcome to Barbados
Log 30 Atlantic Rally for Cruisers
Log 31 The Man with the Unplan
Log 32 Dali Dolphins
Log 33 Flying Like a Turtle
Log 34 The Foolish Man Built His House on a Pitch Lake
Log 35 Go West Young Man
Log 36 Crossing the Atlantic in a Row Boat
Log 37 The Unsinkable HMS Diamond Rock
Log 38 Catamaran Capsize in 170 mph Winds
Log 39 When Are You Coming Home?

Log 40 Master and Commander of Anegada - Frigate Birds
Log 41 Baths of Virgin Gorda - Batholiths of Central Arabia

Log 42 Free at Last
Log 43 Stalking the Wild Manatee

Log 44 Spreaderman
Log 45 Attack of the Flesh Eating Bees
Log 46 Sharks and Coconuts
Log 47 Stingray Picnic
Log 48 Boo Boo Hill
Log 49 Whale Slayers
Log 50 Noddies (Not Naughty)

 

Log 51 Exumas Land and Sea Park
Log 52 David and Goliath
Log 53 Turquoise Clouds of Paradise

Log 54 Momma Nightjar
Log 55 Maximillian The Great
Log 56 Chiton Kingdom
Log 57 Flying and Holding On
Log 58 Far Horizons
Log 59 Clouds Are a Sailor's Friend
Log 60 Getting Connected
Log 61 Fear
Log 62 Grand Schemes and Other Important Things
Log 63 If Jellyfish Had a Brain
Log 64 Cousins That Don't Kiss
Log 65 Swimming With Sharks
Log 66 Perfect the Way You Are
Log 67 Space Travelers
Log 68 Aliens
Log 69 Monsters of the Mind
Log 70 My Butterfly Collection
Log 71 Somewhere Other Than Here Societies
Log 72 Five-Hundred Pound Spiders
Log 73 Red Sea Sunsets
Log 74 Gibraltar Sunrise
Log 75 Big Sea - Small Ship
Log 76 Just Cruising
Log 77 Castle Mania
Log 78 You Must Know the Sea
Log 79 Flying Like a Goat
Log 80 The Joy of Photography
Log 81 Universal Camouflage
Log 82 My Rainbow Collection
Log 83 Indian Ocean Reward
Log 84 Fiber W
Log 85 Turkish Reflections
Log 86 Mirrors and Mirages
Log 87 Lycean Tombs Rock
Log 88 Rigging Emergency
Log 89 Pamukkale
Log 90 Volcano Land
Log 91 Sniffing the Air
Log 92 Why I Don't Kite Surf
Log 93 Resurrecting Exit Only in Turkey
Log 94 Greased Pole Competition
Log 95 Tsunami Damage
Log 96 Afraid of Living
Log 97 Living on the Edge
Log 98 Borneo Adventure
Log 99 Uligamu Tree Tender with Full Benefits
Log 100 God's Fireworks Display

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