23' SeaCraft pulpit construction

[Bushwacker]

We were discussing that this evening... what do you think about an aluminum plate sandwiched between the StarBoard?

The basic idea of beefing up the soft starboard with a metal plate is a good one, but putting it in middle of the "sandwich" will have very little effect and is very inefficient use of the metal. I believe you're looking to increase bending stiffness of the pulpit. Stiffness (moment of inertia) increases with the cube of the height of the section, which is why "I" beams are shaped the way they are to get max stiffness with min use of material. If you really want to stiffen that thing, I'd recommend SS sheets on top and bottom of the starboard sheets! If you want to PM me with your e-mail address, I can send you the basic engineering calculations for stiffness or deflection of a cantilever beam and you can run the numbers to determine the stiffness improvement.