My Buddy has been shopping for older Scarabs, cigs, and Stingers from the 80's. He has looked at about a dozen or so and he has found some sort of rot in all of them, whether it be transom rot, stringer rot, or bulkhead rot. Which makes me wonder, how many older boats are out there running around with rotted transoms and stringers with the owners unaware?

Has anyone ever heard of major damage due to lets say someone running their boat, and the transom splitting and sinking the boat?

The only thing that I can say about the older boats is that the glass is ussually SO thick that even with the rot they are probably to a degree strong enough that they do not just completely come apart. Lets face it even new boats some times desintagrate into nothing...

Jon

Old boats are built like tanks. It depends on how they are stored most of their life as to how if they will rot. Mine was stored inside for at least the last decade and I havn't found any rot in it yet.

my old boat was an 81, no rot and solid as a rock. Replaced fuel tanks and got a good look at everything. He must just be looking at older boats that weren't taken care of.

http://www.lakecumberlandmarine.com/...e91259008d6e26

Taken-care of or not, isn't the main factor. Delamination & rot; the by-product of water intrusion, is the enemy. Lots of well taken-care-of boats will have some moisture around the exhaust thru-hulls & transom assy's...not rot, not delamination...just moisture. Rot & delamination come from long-term, continuing exposure to moisture, like where the limber holes in the stringers aren't finished/sealed.

My Cig is 21 years old, not one spot of rot.

Key words in that are - Las Vegas, NV. Stored out of the water, there is no reason that boat shouldn't last forever.

Congrats.

It doesn't have to be that old to have rot either. I owned a Crownline that developed all kinds of rot after only a few years.

Our 79 Scarab 300 had a bad transom in it which caused us to lose speed. We took 2 years to redo the transom and other cosmetics to get it to look like my avatar. Only to discover after the CPC poker run , and LOTO Shoot out in 05 that the bulk head were gone and the stringers weak.
Any builer or rebuilder I have talked to have said that yes the old boats are thick but the technology wasn't there so they are also brittle due to overuse of resin. Just be aware of what you might buy and look for some tell tale signs of stuctural weakness.

When mine was surveyed there was no rot or moisture detected. The oldies were built like tanks......