[Bushwacker]

You have a good point Don, it's definitely overkill! Sometimes "better" is the enemy of "good enough"! Where he's coming from is extremely lightweight high powered boats that are stressed right to the limits of the material capability. The boats normally discussed on this site really don't fit that category, although that lightweight 90 footer he built with 4800 horsepower definitely does! Same goes for his concern about delamination between polyester and epoxy with the large-to-small vs. small-to-large laminate lay-up . . . given the bond strength of epoxy with proper prep, I think that concern is a nit and can't see that being a problem on Skip & Carla's boat.

I did think that his warning about toxicity of epoxy resin was worth sharing with this group however, and I now understand why you use mostly polyester or vinylester resin! He said you could probably swim in that stuff and not have a problem! Although I've used nitrile gloves for sometime because they seem to be tougher than latex, I had never heard about latex not being acceptable for epoxy. I also suspect that most guys don't wear respirators around epoxy when they probably do with polyester.

Next time I see him, I'm going to ask him what happens to that foam cored hull if he hits a floating hatch cover offshore at 30 kts! A SeaCraft, with it's heavy solid layup, would just bounce off of it, but not so sure about that fancy hi-tech hull.