On Jan 29, 1:00?pm, wrote:
On Jan 29, 3:04 pm, Harry Krause wrote:

On Jan 29, 11:03?am, wrote:There have been some serious evaluations of larger SeaRays showing
significant shortcomings in hull fiberglass builds. If you haven't found
these yourself, I can probably retrieve them.

Yes, i have seen these. There are also skeptics on the Cruisers as
built w/ Balsa below the water line. Not sure what the answer is. For
my situation, we use the boat in the chesapeak bay and tributaries and
are always w/in sight of land. If i was cruising 40 miles off-shore, i
might have a different feeling about what is below the water line!

If you look at a boat with balsa coring, make sure that there are FRP
fairing blocks for through hulls, etc. Should be. That will minimize a
lot of the problems than can result from a cored hull, and be cautious
about just drilling holes willy nilly in the future. Some multi-
million-dollar mega yachts use balsa coring in the hull, so there are
schools of thought that go beyond "Balsa coring is always bad news".

As far as the oft cited concern: "If you run up onto a rock and punch
a hole in the bottom you are going to get the balsa coring wet",
remember that if you run up onto a rock and punch a hole in the bottom
you are going to be spending some serious do-re-mi, (yours or the
insurance company's) to get things fixed again. Part of a proper fix
would be removing and replacing any coring that was damaged or became
wet as a result of the breach.