Spongy boat decks

[ducked]

In fact a great boat - but when neglected and allowed to suffer - what do you expect ?

Seller had bought in Sweden - motored it to Latvia - cabins were in shambles where previous had tried to renivate .. must have been one hell of a trip !
Obviously he planned to renovate - but found the amount needed to be well outside the scope of DIY.

If it had balsa cored decks then IMO it had a fundamental flaw, though evidently a very popular one.
Without that fundamental flaw, if neglected and allowed to suffer, I would expect its decks would still be OK.

 

[steve yates]

Foam core can get soaked and delaminate as well.

The fundamental flaw is screwing or bolting anything directly into the core. If that didn’t happen then it would not get wet and rot. Even then, it does take a very long time. My boat is over 50 years old, it only got as far as delaminating in a couple of areas now. It was still solid ( tho obviously damp) a couple of years ago.

 

[ducked]

Foam core can get soaked and delaminate as well.

The fundamental flaw is screwing or bolting anything directly into the core. If that didn’t happen then it would not get wet and rot. Even then, it does take a very long time. My boat is over 50 years old, it only got as far as delaminating in a couple of areas now. It was still solid ( tho obviously damp) a couple of years ago.

But no-core cannot.

I'd think closed-cell foam shouldnt get soaked, but I'd guess water intrusion can still cause progressive freeze-thaw damage, In any case, unlike balsa, it wont rot.

Basically, you either think its acceptable to use a material with absolutely no durability as a major, but inacessible, sealed structural component of a boat, or you dont.

I dont, irrespective of whether it was possible to get away with it for a long time.

No excuse for it. No unknown exotic materials involved. The problem was completely forseeable and I'd bet was forseen.