Reply to :: Catamaran Sailboats at TheBeachcats.com

Welcome anonymous guest

Please Support
TheBeachcats.com

Forums index page

Reply to: How common is delamination in older catamarans?

Message body

[quote=HULLFLYER]Your 76 Nacra is a glass layup boat not foam sandwich so it will not have the delamination problems of the foam sandwich construction[quote=dmgbear55]Andrew,
I can't speak to older Hobies or Prindles specifically delaminating.  I have a Nacra 5.2 that I have owned since 1976.  The boat has always been stored outside uncovered.  A little over a year ago now I did an extensive rebuild of the boat and nearly every bit was dismantled and inspected with the exception of the center part of the hulls that part was inspected with cameras.  There were some minor problems with galvanic corrosion, but the hulls in my boat were fine.  We reinforced some areas, but structurally the boat was good to go.  By design the early Nacra's were considered to be soft because of the hull structure being light and flexible.

I don't think it is a given that a boat will delaminate with age.  I would be more inclined to think that those problems come from impacts of one sort or another.  Fiberglass in and of itself does not deteriorate, but it can be over stressed and for boats that are in the water a high percentage of the time another chemical problem called osmosis can occur, but that isn't normally a problem for a beach cat.

Delamination is a specific kind of a fiberglass problem.  In an older boat simple structural problems occur and can be pretty easily repaired so just take some time and carefully inspect the interior and exterior of your boat.  Your smart phone or any camera can get you a view of the inside of the hull where the exciting stuff happens.

Take some shots and start a photo album under technical and then you can share what you are seeing.

Here is my example:  [url]https://www.thebeachcats.com/pictures?g2_itemId=122990&g2_GALLERYSID=91052585c3e9650ae9634f28a26d17d5[/url][/quote][/quote]

No HTML tags allowed (except inside [code][/code] tags)