Boats Entering a New Era of Style Thanks to Carbon Fiber

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A classic boat show is to boaters what a classic car show is to fans of cars from the 1940s through the ’70s. Classic designs from decades ago defined an era of boating that was as much about showing off on the water as it was going for a leisure cruise on a quiet Sunday afternoon. Now, the emergence of carbon fiber as a primary building material may be ushering boats into a new era of style that could rival even the best designs of the past.

Boat makers are increasingly relying on composite materials like fiberglass and carbon fiber as primary construction materials in place of wood and aluminum. Modern boats are lighter and stronger as a result. Adopting more composites has an added benefit: it is allowing designers to push the aesthetic envelope too.

Consider the world’s largest carbon composite super yacht just launched by Palmer Johnson. The $48 million boat boasts a 150-foot hull and superstructure made almost entirely from carbon composites. The yacht is truly something to behold. It looks nothing like a classic 1950s era yacht with plenty of natural wood polished to a blinding shine.

40 Years of Stagnation

Looking at the Palmer Johnson super yacht is to be reminded of the stagnation of the last 40 years. Both automotive and maritime design underwent a transformation in the 1980s, a transformation that was motivated by the Carter-era fuel shortages. In an attempt to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, designers turned their attentions to efficiency – at the expense of every other design factor.

That heavy focus on efficiency created aesthetic stagnation. Let’s face it, cars and boats alike have been pretty boring for the last 40 years or so. Just take a trip down to your local marina and look around. It might be hard to find your boat among hundreds of others that look nearly identical. The same is true for cars. It is easy to tell an SUV from a sedan, but it’s nearly impossible to distinguish one SUV from the next.

Boat designers have the edge in terms of design these days. Why? Because it is a lot more cost-effective for them to adopt carbon fiber as compared to the auto industry. As much as carmakers may want to utilize more carbon fiber in place of aluminum and steel, they cannot justify the increased cost of doing so. Boat makers are not as limited by cost concerns.

Doing Some Amazing Things

The Palmer Johnson super yacht is a demonstration of the potential of carbon fiber as a building material for boats. It is proof that fabricators can do some amazing things with carbon fiber as well, explains Utah-based Rock West Composites. With creative tooling and specialized layups, fabricators have made the Palmer Johnson super yacht completely unique in its design.

The yacht’s profile conjures up images of some of the biggest cars of the 1950s. Those cars, with their huge hoods and tail fins, earned the nickname ‘boats’ among both car buyers and industry analysts. How ironic that the Palmer Johnson super yacht calls to mind the automotive boats of a half-century ago.

Boat designers are now in a place where they can create some truly stunning designs that could end up creating a whole new era of classic watercraft. Perhaps 50 years from now, consumers visiting their local boat shows will be looking back on craft like the Palmer Johnson super yacht with both nostalgia and dreams of one day owning one. And it’s all thanks to carbon fiber and other composites.

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