This information goes back to 2012. Garcia Yachting is a well-known French sailboat builder with more than 300 aluminum sailboats under their keel (as of 2012). When Mr. Garcia sold his 40 year old company, he decided to build a trawler for himself and his wife for world cruising. After enjoying her, the boat, he decided to market LeTrawler for production while he built one 10 feet longer for his personal use. The 54’ LeTrawler was making its US premier at the Annapolis boat show which meant crossing the Atlantic during active hurricane season. Yes, they encountered 2 hurricanes but that wasn’t the problem. Mid-Atlantic, at 0-darkhundred, the crew heard a bang and loud crunch. One crew member got thrown from his bunk. While considering a mayday call, the captain did a quick check and determined that they weren’t in danger so they awaited daylight to assess for damage. The large dent and red paint footprint on the starboard bow lead them to believe they had obviously hit a partially submerged container, the kinda thing that doesn’t show up on radar. Due to the hurricanes encountered, they lost some time on their delivery so she not only arrived at the boat show a day late, but certainly lacking the time for repair. So we docked her to proudly display her damage. It was a great topic of conversation if not selling tool. The only other damage to the vessel was the impact knocked the dinghy off its chocks, but fortunately the tied painter made it retrievable. The dinghy became a life-saving story later when LeTrawler was boarded by pirates. But thay’s another story...
I wrote a yacht review of LeTrawler for another forum which has some good information on aluminum. I don’t want to post the link here, as I assume that’s’s against the rules, but you can send me a PM and I will provide it.
Judy