Would denser foam hold up better?

OzOne wrote:
Apparentl caused by flex in the skin.
It just destroys the foam till the skin fractures and peels back in
the worst cases.


Hmm. sounds like localized fatigue all right. As the foam goes, the
skins gain more & more freedom of movement until the bond fails or
they exceed their fatigue limit.


Denser foam appears to make no difference, it's just a foam thing.

Do you know if anybody has tried using (say for example) 20# foam? All
the ones I see are using 8# and 6# for "heavy structural
applications." One fairly savvy builder says it makes more sense to
use spruce stringers than heavy foam... seen some pretty impressive
boats built with laminated wood skins over foam too.


IIRC, the bigguns have gone to balsa where cores need to be super
strong.


Balsa has it's problems too. Good stuff in the right application. Part
of the situation is that the buyers of these boats need to recognize
that a boat intended to sail hard can only be built so light. But they
go with the design/build team that promises the best numbers.... go
figure...

Hey Bart, if you're still reading this, I would recommend building in
some uncored stringers under your deck rather than replacing core.
Kind of like the C-beams I put under the super-dinghy's thwarts, if
you remember that pic.

DSK