On 8/30/10 4:38 PM, W1TEF wrote:
On Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:26:49 -0500, wrote:

W1TEF wrote:
On Mon, 30 Aug 2010 07:21:18 -0500, wrote:

Best advice you got so far was to weigh the boat to see if the foam is
waterlogged.

I don't know if you remember Jim, but I found out that my Ranger bay
boat is about 870 lbs over published weight putting the whole rig
right on the edge of trailer capacity - 4,980 lbs for a 5,000 lb
trailer.

The foam isn't waterlogged. I called Ranger about it and they didn't
have an explanation either.

I got to thinking about it. A gallon of water weighs 8 lbs. To have
870 lbs of extra water weight, the boat would have to hold 109 gals of
water.

That's a lot of cubic feet of water to have in foam on a 20 foot boat.

I've seen where some weigh their new boat and find it a couple hundred
pounds over. The manufacturers always claim it's because different
workers lay glass differently than others, especially in how much resin.
And that makes sense if you're talking 10% weight or so.

Funny you should mention that. Back when I was in the market for a
32' CC I thought about a custom designed CC from Blue Fin over in
Bristol, RI. We took a trip over there, met the design crew, took the
manufacturing plant tour (which was really interesting) and just
generally got comfortable with them - great folks by the way.

Anyhow, I asked about weight (because of the Ranger) and the design
guy told me the weight spec could be off as much as 10/12% to the plus
side and never on the other side. For exactly that reason - extra
layer of glass, little more mat in strength areas, density of the core
material and how it absorbed the resin under vacuum - he listed a
bunch of things that would cause the extra weight.

So you're right on that score.

Just as a side note, I would have bought the boat they planned for me
if the Grady dealer hadn't come up with an acceptable price. :)

This is funny stuff. In building modern, small fiberglass boats, the
glass cloth is cut to a pattern, either by hand or by numerically
controlled machines. The amount of chop is known. The amount of gelcoat
is known. The amount of resin is known. The amount of XL ply is known.
So are the weights of these products, as are the weights of what the
factory installs into the boat, such as a pair of batteries. The Parker
factory told me my boat, sans engine, would weigh about 2700 pounds, a
bit less than what it usually did because I opted out of a fairly heavy
option. I knew what the engine would weigh, and I know what a half tank
of gas weighs.

All things being equal, the finished hull and accessories, san engine
and gas, for my boat would have been within 50 pounds of what the
factory says, to account for more resin, glass, whatever.

But 10 to 12% more on a small boat built to the typical standard without
additional heavy options? Bull****.

My guess is that no one at Ranger actually weighed a model of the boat
Tom boat when his was made. Someone just guessed, and they guessed...low.

Some years ago, there was a discussion in a real boating group about a
Bertram that wouldn't float level on its lines, and the "fix" was
pouring in a couple of tons of concrete on the "high" side.

Maybe tom's boat has some "extra" weight for that reason...or perhaps
there are a few bodies stuffed in under the bilges.