Our Blu Emu is made from aluminium. However, aluminium wasn’t on our must-have list when we were looking. But as we now have such a boat, I got interested in the material and found out why it is such a great thing to build boats out of: I have made a page about aluminium boats, and noted the StrongAll® method that ours is built using. this different method means for a 50’/15m boat, she in incredibly strong with 12mm thick hulls and 6mm thick deck and superstructure. Did you know most shark cages are made from aluminium? The US F16 fighter is 80% aluminium? Armour plating is often made from aluminium…
There are very few aluminium boats compared to being built from other materials. There are even fewer aluminium catamarans, and even fewer aluminium power catamarans! One of them is our sistership, the Santorini 65 (for sale recently), which was reviewed by Multihulls World (pay for full article).
Most of the other aluminium power catamarans you will find are those larger ones built for passengers, as 50’/15m is about the cutoff where the extra weight of aluminium is worth it for the strength and other properties: you probably won’t see many 30′ or 40′ aluminium power cats ever, unless they are very specialised.
Our Blu Emu is unique in that she is an aluminium power catamaran narrow enough to go through the French canals. Can’t wait!!
Blue Nomads 