I am sure if you contact Matt at http://www.aquarius-sail.com he would be happy to quote you a price.

Best Regards,
Bob

Thanks for the replys.
I thought that the weight of the Tiger is OK (Reasonable) I just wanted a cat that doesnt dent or crease the hull every time it just bumps any thing. Some one tossed a lfe jacket and the buckel dented the hull. Plus a bunch other marks that you wouldnt expect.
So I was currious if instead of all the weight saving that is put into a cat, it could be made more durrable.

My boat is a 2002 and maybe that year was just suseptable to easy denting.

Mike

What about metal. Titanum hulls? Expensive. Easy to repair. Noisy. How does an aluminum hull wiegh in against glass on bigger boats. I'm guessing Carbon fibre is still lighter and stiffer. Anyone know? I have no clue.

On these size boats with light skins, the core densities are the key to dent resistant hulls.

With a standard glass skin, about 100kg/cubic meter and you should be able to drop your knee on it without a mark. About 80kg/cubic meter is border-line and commonly used for racing boats (because dents don't really matter for performance), 60kg/cubic meter will dent just looking at it and is only really suitable if you don't care about dents but care about weight.

No core, no dents.

If you're planning to run your boat up the beach, consider a metal strip down the keel. Easiest solution, sand will always win over composite.

Never build a balsa core below the waterline. Despite what the suppliers say or how good the boat is built, it will eventually get water into the core and it will be the beginning of the end for your boat. Above the waterline balsa installations are fine and very good for dent resistance and other properties designers want out of composite cores.

Composites will generally be lighter than metals for the same stiffness/strength. There are a number of problems with using metals on such small boats, mainly that it would be difficult to weld the thin sheets and maintain a fair hull. They'd also be suceptible to looking like a starved horse over time.

Also, have you seen a standard tinny after a couple of years of abuse, they are significantly dinted, probably more so than an equivalent weight cored composite construction tinny. A "durable" plate aluminium 5m tinny will weigh significantly more than an equivalent composite boat, but I wouldn't run the composite boat onto the beach at speed unless I didn't care about destroying the bottom.

From my understanding, titanium is very difficult to weld. You can't just use a standard welder with a gas shield, you need a full inert gas room. It has been done though, apparently the Russians built a couple of titanium submarines, they may've also been double skinned.