Talk:Amel Yachts

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Caissons and GFRP[edit]

From the article: "During World War II, Amel noticed that the floating caissons used by invading Allied naval forces in France relied on a fiberglass and polyester resin construction".

Something seems to have gone wrong here.

  1. A caisson (engineering) does not float; it is a fixed structure. A floating part is a pontoon.
  2. This passage seems to refer to the two Mulberry Harbours used in Normandy. The caissons were of concrete, and the pontoons of steel or concrete.
  3. The Mulberries were a British idea (the Americans didn't like it much), and were fabricated in Britain. GFRP was an American invention, and Britain did not have that technology (either the fibreglass or the resin) in 1944.
  4. The storm of 19 June 1944 destroyed the American Mulberry (on Omaha Beach). The Americans thereafter landed supplies using Landing Ship, Tanks (rather more efficiently than the British did at the surviving Mulberry). Those were made by conventional shipbuilding techniques, out of steel.
  5. From the Wiki article on pontoons: "Before the 1970s, glass-reinforced plastic was rare".

Narky Blert (talk) 11:42, 18 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]