Very good questions here.. were looking at the 288 sunsations and the balsa coring in the sides and bottom have me concerned..

Chris-my boat was almost 15 years old when the coring failed (rather dramatically too). Sunsation is a very good boat company and I wouldn't be concerned with buying one of their cored boats. They know how to build them right.

Why couldn't epoxy be mixed with a very slow set activator and maybe mixed in batches? Does it need to be painted or is gel coat adequate protectiono? What about the inside? I knida like how Cougar exposes the wood so you can see how well they did. Can't bury sloppy workmanship. But epoxy will yellow if exposed. Of course, most resin systems that I've seen are red. How do they make their's so clear?

Cord, this was on a concord correct ?? I think I remember seeing the pictures when your boat almost sunk ??, yes pretty dramatic if I remeber correctly..

Without getting redundant, I thought I'd just post the individual websites for ease of reference of the three most popular synthetic cores. Each has some merits and disadvantages and the choice is determined by the requirements.

Airex:
http://www.baltek.com/products/airex/airexR63.htm

Kledgecell:
http://www.diabgroup.com/americas/u_...pdf/R_DS_U.pdf

Divinycell:
http://www.diabgroup.com/americas/u_..._pdf/HD_DS.pdf

Never heard of termanto.

Yep, it was the old Concord. Very dramatic and very sudden. The hull failed with in 10 minutes of us leaving the harbor. I know because I had checked the oil just before and the bilge was dry. We were very lucky to be with other people or we would have been swimming 5 miles off shore in 50 degree water.

I take it that's the pic in your "Damn it! This is the CORDless model!" link?

Yes, that would be a compressive hull failure. That pic was taken after 300 gallons of water had already drained from the boat. I think the hull cracked when I caught some significant air earlier in the day. It just took a couple of hours for the water to work through the inner layer of glass.