Kerry

Somebody needs to do something with these way oversize blown out images (ads) appearing in the guts of posts, Willy totally unworkable!

Still doesn't change the fact that cell phones are a liability in this regard

As far as rivited alloy boats are concerned most boat builders (over here anyway) have moved on many many years ago, yet there are still some 40 year old rivited alloy boats still going today that were made by DeHavilland all those years ago. DeHavilland being an aircraft manufacturer knew very well about alloy stress and fatigue hence one reason why aircraft are still full of rivits today. With small light weight alloy boats rivits still have a place for the very reason of stess and fatigue with thin weled light gauge alloy. Different scenario when 6mm plate is being used but there can still be an issue with stress, fatigue and failure and when an all welded alloy plate boat fails it fails big time.

So you are saying Crestliner stinks? No, what I said was that any welded alloy boat can/could leak, split, take on water etc there is no guarantee that just because it's an all-welded aluminium boat that it will/should never leak. Regardless of being a Crestliner or not.

Considering Oz builders have been building big, small and in between alloy plate and pressed fully welded boats for probably a lot longer and in greater qualties than the US then trust me that they can/will & do split at times, You should never say never on this one as there are quite a few variables in this that no one can simply make a blanket statement like that.

So lets talk about some of the "less important" stuff, you know stuff like alloy grade, bottom/side thickness etc

If it floats be it a bath tub, a PWC or a gin palace and is beyond 2nm from shore barring minor regional exemptions then it should be equiped with and EPIRB, which is not to be confused with a PLB. The future is near

Of course he sounds Australian even more there are lots of us you know we are the ones that invented the "real" modern day catamaran and you lot are the ones 15 years behind still catching up We are from oz and we are here to help you

Hey you've got to admit it is real clever

Nah this is more than a router/IP issue. It would appear a bit more than that as having access to multiple and different dial-up, wireless broadband, ADSL etc systems they all behave the same and even where some of the systems have never ever even connected to THT .

That's fine and when you have all the other gear in place (VHF, Epirb etc) then a cell phone does not become a liability.

Cell phones should be banned in any water as far as navigation and especially as far as any type of safety tag is concerned.

Reason for edit: Not standard

Where did you hear this crock of s,,t? Have you tried it? It's only true for an 8' dink. After 15 minutes bailing you wanna die rather than pick up that bucket again. The bilge pump is still going.. Yep electric bilge pumps work wonders when the battery is under water Way too many people have way too much faith into all things electric. When you have the "choice" you will pick up that bucket, regardless.

Look Alloy isn't everything to everybody, never has and never ever will be. Is it the way to go? Well now that depends on many many variables that nobody here has all the answers too. As for this so called fluff or looks or ugly or whatever turns your fancy the good old mudguard principle (shining on top, sh!t underneath) applies to any boat building material. Simply so many variables and some are trying to put everything in the one basket, not possible people.