What were they thinking?

Ever since I've owned the boat, the floor panel over the fuel cell has been soft. You could see at the pie plates where the plywood was rotting, and when I first got the boat, I laid down some aluminum angles as added support. It worked well enough for what I needed at the time.

Fast forward to today, where after a morning of tubing, I decided it was time to actually do the floor repair. I pulled the panel, and started trimming away at the bottom glass to seperate it from the top, expecting to see a big piece of rotted plywood. Instead, this is what I saw:



A bunch of 6" square pieces of 1/2" (or 3/8") of plywood semi-resined in. No wonder the dang thing rotted. There are areas where there was no resin between the pieces, and there were only 4 pieces that weren't rotted all the way through.

For those of you who would know, is this common? To me it looks like a cheap shortcut; use the scraps from around the shop to build the floor.

I'm planning on replacing the wood with nidacore, or some other lightweight substrate. Any suggestions?

Re: What were they thinking?

What do the stringers, foam, and transom look like?

When you buy used, you're just buying someone else's problems.

If they did that to the deck, what else did they bastardize that you don't know about?

Re: What were they thinking?

That was done like that from the factory.

Re: What were they thinking?

So you are the Original Owner of the Boat?? What Make and Model of Boat are we talking about? Is this the 1984 Sportcraft listed in your Footer area?

Re: What were they thinking?

Yes, the Sportcraft. I'm the 2nd owner. Original owner was a pastor who had all work done at one of two shops locally. You can tell in person that this was original workmanship.

Re: What were they thinking?

Looks like the reason in rotted was because the access plates and screw holes for the doghouse cover weren't sealed as well at they should have been/

Re: What were they thinking?

It's not uncommen to use small pieces or scrap wood, but not exactly in this way. This is normally done on a curved surface where a full flat sheet won't follow the contour, and only if it's fully glassed on both sides of the wood. Doing the it like in the pic would not be a great way to do it. Plywood is used as a low cost core to add strength and stiffness, this method doesn't add much of either, if any.

Re: What were they thinking?

Before I cut it open, it was fully glassed on both sides, except where the access plates were. The cutouts for those were siliconed. Would nidacore/Nida-Core be the best replacement material?

Re: What were they thinking?

This kind of plywood was common in many types of builds in the past, alot of hatches and coffin lids were built with this crap.

Re: What were they thinking?

Beefer said:

Would nidacore/Nida-Core be the best replacement material?

Click to expand...

Better/best...possibly...just depends on the exact product chosen.

Cost effective...rarely on an older boat.

if you rebuild it with plywood and do a fair to good job it will last another 15 to 20 years with little care, with good care longer. So how long do you plan to own it.

Re: What were they thinking?

ondarvr said:

Better/best...possibly...just depends on the exact product chosen.

Cost effective...rarely on an older boat.

if you rebuild it with plywood and do a fair to good job it will last another 15 to 20 years with little care, with good care longer. So how long do you plan to own it.

Click to expand...

Less then 15 yrs. So you think plywood would be the smartest way to go?

Re: What were they thinking?

It's easy to work with, low in cost, readily available and last longer than you plan to use it, but it's up to you.

The other thing is, even if you use the absolute best products and methods to re-build it, it won't increase the value of the boat on re-sale.

Re: What were they thinking?

Beefer - I feel yer pain... I was astonished to discover my SeaRay's floor rotted because neither the fuel tank access hatch nor the edges of the floor around the perimeter of the hatch were sealed at the factory from water intrusion. Cheap-o shortcut and the main reason you will never see me leading the SeaRay-is-built-like-no-other parade. Fooey on that - they could be just as cute-rate as anyone else when they put their mind to it...

Re: What were they thinking?

If you use Aruaco Plywood and coat it with epoxy or Mat and Resin, taking care to not get any air pockets and seal the edges, Like ondarvr says, it will last for decades. Especially if you do not drill into it or puncture it in any way. If you do, just make sure to pre-drill and coat the holes and the screws with epoxy. What you have lasted 27 yrs, so if you do it right, it should last double that.