Re: Hull strenght

Posted by Howard on Sep 19, 2004

christian,

you ask a good question. i think you need to break it down into two parts....

waterproofing....the boat should be coated with at least two coats of epoxy on all unglassed surfaces to ensure it is waterproofed. this is typically the underside of the decks, and depending on the boat, some internal surfaces of the hull. the current designs for all the boats call for deck glass. if you are at all going to be practicing re-entries on a routine basis and/or, treating your boat aggressively, i would highly recommend you glass the deck.

deck strength: in the current designs they have added hatch doublers and rims around the cockpit openings to strengthen them. again, if you are going to be doing a lot of re-entry practice, it is worth putting these additional wood laminates to improve the strenght and waterproofness of the hatch openings which. it is important that these additional wood laminates are properly glued to the underside of the deck to have proper strength.

finally, it is a bit hard to know just how aggresive/hard you may be on the boat. but the back of the deck (directly behind the coaming) can also be re-inforced with fibreglass cloth on the bottom of the deck. again this improves strength and water-proofness. the key here is that any surface that is getting flexed a lot should have cloth on both sides. epoxy without cloth has a tendency to develop cracks over time if continually flexed that become candidate to allow water into the woord if exposed to water. so...again, if yo are going to be very agressive and you are also heavy, a layer of cloth under the rear deck is another area where you can add some reinforcement. all this will add a 4 to 5 pounds (vs a non-glassed deck/no hatch doublers boat) but it is the right thing to do if you will really be working hard with the boat.

good luck

hs

In Response to: Re: Hull strenght by Dick R on Sep 19, 2004

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