flooring a boat

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ronward

Petty Officer 1st Class
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Jun 24, 2013
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any thoughts on using 5/4 deck board as a floor? Does a fiberglass deck give that much structural integrity to the boat. Lookin for an easy, cheap way out to just get a few years out of the boat
 
Bob_VT

Bob_VT

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Re: flooring a boat

Been discussed many times before ....if it's the engineered synthetic wood ...it will not work.

The cheapest way out is plain old exterior plywood.
 
H

HAG87

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Apr 13, 2011
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Re: flooring a boat

I redid my pontoon in 3/4 in and it was quite a bit of weigh you should be good with 1/2
 
JoLin

JoLin

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Aug 18, 2007
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5,146
Re: flooring a boat

HAG87 said:
I redid my pontoon in 3/4 in and it was quite a bit of weigh you should be good with 1/2
Click to expand...

Depends on how the under-deck support structure is arranged. From the standpoint of structural integrity, a cockpit sole is a floor, and 1/2" plywood will only work on a pretty small 'span'... maybe 12-15" between supports.

Case in point- my 16' Sylvan has a section of the sole over the fuel tank that sagged badly. There's a 24" span between the stringers there, and the dopes who built it used 1/2" plywood. Guaranteed to fail over time.

My .02
 
erie_guy

erie_guy

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Jan 16, 2007
Messages
269
Re: flooring a boat

My Lake Erie charter captain buddy, with a 28' Marinette, covered his deck with white "StarBoard". The original teak was to difficult to keep clean and the StarBoard just hoses off in a minute. Might want to look at the added weight, because the StarBoard seem heavy - just in case your boat is already stern heavy.

My son purchased a boat in which the P.O. replaced the floor and foamed between the stringers. The foam was saturated with water and after tearing out the floor and wet foam his boat was several hundred pounds lighter. You might check under the floor once you get it up to see if you have a similar issue.

erie_guy
Port Clinton, OH
 
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