lol its actually a character on a video game i use to play, Half-Life. I have no idea why i picked that as my screen name. I only use glassdave on boat sights i am active on and have something to contribute. I am just a lurker on YF.

Even in the ester systems where the vacuum levels are kept low in wet bagging there is @30% compaction or better in the laminate. The Epoxies I start at 5 HG then ramp it up.

OHH that Gordon Freeman. The one on all the pornsites

actually YF is the only place i use that one. I'm really only on a hand full of sites anyway

hey Steve can you send me your email address again?

[email protected]

I want to send you a schematic of a method i use to repair these thin laminates and see if I'm heading in the right direction. Of course we have two years pounding on the repair i did to the Talon with no sign of failure of any kind. Most of the boats that go through my shop are traditional thick lay ups and I've had to work off the cuff to come up with a way to repair some of these ultra thin boats.

Thanks for your input

Did you see the video Dave . What do you think?

Hey Dave could you send that schematic to me also ? Always curious to see stuff like that my address [email protected]. Thanks.

yea, just watched it. That thing is a mess. I think it stuffed and dove slightly and carried a fair amount of momentum, the water pressure just blew blew right through the boat. With the path of destruction i saw it was enough water to do significant and catastrophic damage but at the same time may not have been enough to slow the boat much for the first few seconds after impact. So basically it cut its own head off, the mass of water blew a hole straight through the boat. As far as to why the hull(bow) failed, thats a tough one. Build quality? Light lay up? Hit something? whos to say, I can tell you it does not take to much of a breach to have catastrophic results. A small hole can be blown out HUGE by water pressure. I think i read somewhere the captain said the transom was still attached after initial impact while going down. I am certainly not going to say its a lie but i think it may have been some kind of mistake like it was still visible in that location but the damage had already been done (separated at the perimeter). Is there a detailed report from the captain anywhere? These are some long threads and i have not read all of them.

Thank God No one was hurt or worse, Boats can be replaced ,I will be interested in the findings here.

Uncle Dave –Every couple of months when I need a diversion from work, I browse this site for amusement. You seem to be getting a tough time here which isn’t really fair as you haven’t had a technical answer to your inquiry. Therefore let me have a go. You can’t look at the raw data of the core material in isolation when you are dealing with the dynamic loading of a panel for which the core’s is only a component part. Peter at Skater “get’s away” with balsa in his boats due to his proper bonding technique and epoxy resins which together permit the construction of very light and strong boats. Therefore it will be a very rare instance where the forces exceed the ultimate strength of his balsa panel. However if they do the result is an instant catastrophic failure. With Linear or (to a slightly lesser extent) san foam core, whilst the panel will have a greater deflection than a balsa panel for a given impact, such defection absorbs the energy of this force. As the linear/san foam will maintain its structural properties throughout this deflection (subject of course to the panel’s elastic limit), the total amount of energy absorbed from an impact prior to de-lamination (subject to the resin) will exceed that of the stiffer balsa panel. In high impact dynamic loading structures you need to look at the area under the stress strain curve. Whilst the balsa panel will have a very step curve with very high stress capability, the area under this curve will not match that of the lower stress linear/san foam core panel and thus is not capable of surviving the same magnitude of impact. Again in force calculations mass is a key component so Peter’s light and extremely well built boats will generally never exceed the energy absorption limit under his panel’s stress/strain curve-even though this area is less than that of the equivalent linear/san foam panel.

Hope this helps

I hear ya, seeing the damage at the helm with it pushed back like it was tells me a huge column of water rushed through there blowing the transom on its way out the back. But this is all speculation, it will be interesting on what their findings are. Even more interesting is who will be liable and have to pony up for the loss. Glad they got off the boat ok.



nautdesign1- welcome aboard and thanks for the response. Very well put, looking forward to more of your thoughts.