20ft plus, 6m plus plate alloy becomes a better $$ proposition.
In-between can go either way.
With your usage with aluminium you need a plate boat not a pressed tinny.
A pressed tinny will be thinner lighter etc and is not up to your task.
As per Pauls post 30cm bigger makes a big difference so keep in mind of marketing claims of boat size for example the barcrusher 560, was later called a 610, and today is called 615. Many people think it is a 6.15m boat yet all 3 have the same 5.6m hull and are all 5.6m boats.
This has come about as brands have switched to using overall length instead of hull length. Combined with different degrees of marketing exaggeration. Thus it is very important to find out the true hull length without bowsprit and without duck boards/boarding platforms etc, so you can compare apples with apples.
6m plate alloy should be 5mm thick bottom and 4mm thick sides some high quality builds use 6mm bottom and 5mm sides.WayneK wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 10:32 amHi Paul, thanks for chiming in. You've touched the nerve that's probably causing me the most grief: how thick should the bottom and sides be? Will 4mm and 3mm be sufficient for my needs? Do I need to go heavier on the bottom plate? I simply don't know. I have zero desire to go out when the wind and sea is up but I want something to properly handle the return to shore if the weather turns quickly.
Due to material price increase I see a number of manufactures have been reducing the hull and side thicknesses in recent years.
Bar Crusher for example the 615 is now using 4mm bottom and 4mm sides when the previous versions were 5mm bottom and 4mm sides, not a good idea IMO.
Sandef, barcrushers do not have a self draining floor until you get into the 7m plus range.