Jeanne, how about this?

This is the apparently steel boat that was hit by a ship off the Canaries last year or the year before.

I remember being amazed by a french double chine 40' steel hull in Antigua in the early '80's that had obviously spent some time pounding on the rocks somewhere... I never got the story but the whole middle third of the port side was smashed in a good 12 to 18"... looked like a car wreck. They were still living aboard at anchor. The amazing thing was I saw the same boat a year later in Martinique, and they were still living aboard and still hadn't fixed it... and the boat was still afloat, a little the worse for wear. I can't imagine what the interior looked like... the hull was really smashed and displaced a lot, and there had to have been significant interior damage. But she wasn't holed.

And yes, I may be biased, since I do have a steel hull, but that's mostly because it's the medium I was most comfortable building in. Obviously one can successfully circumnavigate in virtually any material. Whatever keeps floating your boat.

Best, Bob