I was worried about the Internet horror stories on cored hulls too before I
bought my boat. Then I talked to experts who work on boats for a living..
Here's what they said:
1st the likelihood that you get severe delamination is pretty slim. This
spring I had my bottom stripped to the bare gelcoat (A very big job, had
never been done) We found no blisters.
2nd: Even if you get blisters, it's actually not that big a deal. In the
yard I've seen boats with what looked like pretty bad rashes and no one was
phased.. If repaired correctly you end up with a sound hull that's a
little heavier. This whole thing's been around for a long time and it's
been figured-out.
3rd: In the extreme case where the core gets wet. Many folks elect to just
keep on sailing for another decade or 2.
A couple things that make the 34+ series boats less worry some for the
core:
- The Hydrex NPG Gelcoat they used was very resistant to water absorption,
oxidation, and blisters. Similar stuff is used on most of the better boats
today. As an additional plus it does not chalk-up
- C&C was selective with the use of coring. For example: It's solid
laminate on the bottom area in front of the keel where the transducers are.
That section is about a foot wide and 3 long. No worries about special
cored hull procedures for installing / replacing transducers. Same thing
on the deck: The areas where deck hardware is installed are almost all
solid areas. In the stress areas where there might be some hardware the
deck is cored with Coromat which does not rot.
About the stiffness of the hull. The 34+ was the 1st CAD designed boat at
C&C, the mast step / keel mount grid area is Epoxy "cored" with Nomex
honeycomb and the rest of the hull is Hybrid Kevlar / glass. Cutting edge
stuff for the day. That makes for a stiff and lightweight hull at around
12,500 lbs , the light / stiff hull allows adding more weight on the keel
which allows it to handle bigger sails. The sugar scoop tail not only look
racy it also elongates the water line. at almost 31 ft it has the same /
longer water line as the older 38 -40 foot designs. All that to kick some
booty on the water :-)
This was the last of the real Canadian C&C's. After decades of building
fast cored hulls, they had a lot of things figured-out.
-Francois
1990 34+ "Take Five"
Lake Lanier, Georgia
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