I'm just curious to see what kind of flaws one should be looking for when looking at any of the non-step top guns. Do you get a bunch of cosmetic spider cracks? How about the stringers and such, how do they hold up? What are the common weak points to check?

There was a thread a couple weeks ago about a boat called "pink flamingo". In the tread there was a brief discussion about some problems with some flat bottom guns. That is all I ever remember reading about in the way of structural concerns, and I am not sure there was ever any definitive answer on the problem.

Edit - Here's the Thread.

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/s...=pink+flamingo

I believe that was a carbon gun and almost all of them were redone.

I can tell you mine likes to bow the stainless rubrail and pop out the screws by the fairing when you play in the rough

Carl

Mine has some stress cracks in the cap but the boat was laid up light and was a race boat. The cap was also made completely of carbon fiber, not a carbon/kevlar mix. I don't think you'll find many problems with stress cracks on a normal production lay-up boat.

Never had any issues with my Carbon Fiber 97. Have had a lot of buddies who have had guns and no issues. Any issues that developed through time were due to the operator not the manufacturer.

I also had a cafe Racer. Great boat, no issues.

If you go into the cabin and you lift the bed up you can see the stringers sometime you will have stress cracks there

Did you say "structural weakness'" in a 38 Top gun?!

That's funny right there.

Anything can be broken. Cig is at the top of the list of toughness though. Stringers are the usual places as well as bulkhead tabbing-mostly forward. I'd be more concerned with rot- microbes can't tell if it's a Cig or a Bayliner.

Chris...Always the devils advocate...

In all seriousness though, the main point of the question was "any common weak points" and I'd have to say most definately not. I think all boats, depending on use, can get spyder cracks. I've never noticed any on our boat though.

And you're right, any boat can be mis-treated thus breaking. And that would be (was) my main concern when looking for a used Top Gun was water rot.

You're right- they don't usually break. If you see one broken, it was run HARD. At least once anyway.

On any offshore, the most common places you'll find damage are at the stringers in the middle third and the bulkheads in that same area.