Since 1954, the importation of aluminum boats from advanced countries to Indonesia have resulted in time lag between placement of contracts to deliveries. Notwithstanding, time being cut off from customs clearance in the receiving country often leads to boats being unable to use for additional months due to documentation issues. Indonesia’s excessive import taxes, duties, and customs have constantly resulted in increasing costs for boats and could potentially experience delay the importation process of aluminum boats into Indonesia. One best solution is to look out for aluminium boat builder Indonesia that guarantees professionalism, expertise, and promises quality in the aluminium boat building industry. As aluminium boat builder in Indonesia, there are many reasons as to why building aluminum boats are a better choice compared to boats made out of steel or fiberglass.
There is no other priority besides ensuring safety of boat's crews and passengers. There have been misperceptions about aluminium boats due to core material used to build them. Boats made out of aluminium are approximately 30% lighter than fiberglass boats and 50% lighter than steel-made boats - in fact, aluminium creates the lightest boats. The nature of aluminium is light, which makes it the perfect choice for boat builder not only in Indonesia but also across the world. However, the light-weight material often builds safety concern for many of aluminium boat users. Fret not. With its very high-quality material, aluminium's strength that matches those of steel is also considered as a good resistant to corrosion caused by salt water. Besides, aluminium’s light-weight nature allows efficiency in fuel consumption while still offering high speeds, and it makes aluminium boats easier to be transported on- and off-shore. Aluminium boats durability results in the life span of roughly about 30-40 years. With that being said, it would still result in a high resale value and low maintenance costs directed to many of aluminium boat's users.
It is said that aluminums do not burn compared to Glass Reinforced Polyester (GRP) boats. Usually used in building rescue boats, GRP boats contain petroleum-based resins which could potentially burn.
There are exhaustive lists of fire retardant materials used in building boats. One of them includes GRP. Although fire retardant resin makes it more difficult to light fire, but nonetheless the burning is extremely energetic once triggered. Besides, GRP is breakable, and is potentially become cracked and fractured during high impacts. Aluminum, on the other side, has considerable strength and ductility. It has the ability to withstand permanent deformation without rupture. This is because aluminum has low modulus of elasticity, and it absorbs the energy of the impact and prevents damages. Aluminum is also not affected by UV rays from the sun, which could damage the fiberglass boat gelcoat, the hull, and underlying structure. This will make fiberglass boats more fragile over time.
As another fact on why you should consider aluminium boats, aluminium is a more environmentally-friendly alternative than fiberglass. Recovering fiberglass is a longer, more complicated, less efficient and expensive process. Dumping unused fiberglass boats creates a problem to the ecosystem imbalance due to its slow self-destruction nature compared to aluminium that could be recycled.
There are plenty of aluminium boat builders in Indonesia. Availability to customize boats, stock production boats, until the mixture of stock boats with custom touches are deemed to be possible. Truth be told, customizing an aluminium boat is easier than modifying a fiberglass boats. The welding pieces of aluminium could be done in place. Besides, builders should make shape, or create molds with glass, and fuss around with perpetual filling and sanding which makes it a lot more work required than the aluminum.
Depending on the type of aluminium used in the boat's hull, some types of aluminums are costlier than the other. As pointed by Jay Perrotta from Rock Salt Boats, although Grade 5086 (used primarily for military purposes) costs more expensive - it is more rigid compared to the 5052, and he suggested 5086 for hull subjected to high stresses. Of course, aluminium boats are more expensive to build than fiberglass boats. The value that aluminium boat holds also last over time. Reason being, what you see with an aluminium boat is what you get. Faulty skin-to-core bonds, rotted plywood transoms would be easily observed on aluminium boats. As a truly one-piece vessel with minimal joints being welded separately, apparent abuses to aluminium boats are visible and could not be easily covered up. These factors reduce user's uncertainty about the boat's current condition that could also smoothen reselling process of survey.
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As a closing note from Eric Sorensen in his article “Aluminium Boats are Built for Life,” he states that – “if you’re looking for a custom — or highly customizable — boat that won’t blister, delaminate or rot, is easy to repair and maintain, is rugged and damage resistant, that’s light and strong, and can stand up to decades of hard use, I suggest giving aluminium a close look. You might even be in the vanguard of a practicality driven populist trend.”
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