Window on the bottom of a boat?

[Adam Ajans]

My uncle is retired and lives most of the time on a small coastal village. So he bought a small boat (7-8 meters long) a few years ago and is enjoying it. Since we are in the acrylic products business, he asked me to make an acrylic window on the bottom of his boat. It's not impossible with a 15-20mm thick clear acrylic piece with the dimensions of about 1x1 m, but I don't know anything about boat construction, yet common sense tells me that the acrylic won't be able to withstand the weight and pressure. And then there's the problem of impermeability. What's your thought on this subject? Is it even remotely possible?

[Morey St. Denis]

We'll need a lot more detail on the form and construction of that boat hull before even considering some reasonable suggestions... If you do elect to proceed further, make sure you're planning to use Polycarbonate material as opposed to regular acrylic, a brand name that comes to mind is Lexan. Another potentially problematic concern around the marine environment is sunlight, particularly ultraviolet wavelengths over the long term, which have a profoundly degrading effect at the molecular level on all organic chemistry.

[Dan Hintz]

Silver Springs in Florida offers glass-bottomed boat tours... you can REALLY see to the bottom of the springs on those tours.

[Dave Richards]

You might want to try getting in touch with John Blazy. He's got a lot of experience with building boats with "glass" bottoms. See his site

You can see one of the windows on the boat he calls Calypsee


He's got an interesting method for filling the weave of fiberglass with epoxy, too. You can see the epoxy on the left in this picture.


This shot is from when he was building the boat, above.