Waterguy, I am saving this post. I also forwarded it to my wife. She is sitting next to me reading it and laughing at your comments about the fish guts and being half drunk. Hehe. There is some serious reassurance that comes from all the happy folks that I hear talk about those 6-71's. I guess I just need to add some real sound insulation under the salon carpets and along the stairs to the galley that lift up. I am getting a ton of noise out of there. As long as I don't have to yell to have a conversation I would be fine. BTW, my wife and I have both noticed how solid she feels in the water. Its amazing. We have some good boating friends that just picked up a new to them 36 Bayliner and that boat rocks and blows in the wind in their slip like it were a kayak with a sail up. Our boat feels like it is poured in concrete. It is just awesome. Slowly but surely I will get everything figured out. :) The "sanitation" plumbing is the big thing I need to figure out right now. Trying to follow the hoses along after they drop into the walls is pretty frustrating for me. I keep loosing them. Keep the info rolling. Consider me the newbie sponge.
Kerry -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of waterguy Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2009 11:11 PM To: UnifliteWorld Subject: [UnifliteWorld] Re: Introduction David - just to comment on a couple of your points: Uniflites were *never* built with balsa cores. They were solid fiberglass, and a lot of it. In their last year in production, Uniflite cored some boats, but I don't think they ever did the 42. I know the 36 Double Cabins were. When done right, balsa coring in the hull sides above the waterline has a lot to recommend it. Fiberglass resin and woven roving by itself can be flexible unless you use many, many layers of it. This has three drawbacks, two of which directly affect boatbuilders and one which indirectly affects the builder. The consequences of using solid fiberglass that affect builders directly are high labor costs, and high material costs. What affects builders indirectly is weight. Mucho weight. This means that customers that want to go above trawler speeds are going to require bigger engines, which add weight, and which use more fuel to push all that weight. Builders have attempted to reduce the labor costs by using chopper guns, which spray a mixture of chopped glass strands and resin into the mold. However, it was soon learned that however thick you made it, chopped-strand construction just wasn't strong enough. They tried to reduce cost by using cheaper resins, which lead to grief from blistering and resin breakdown (not the cause of Uniflite blistering, but that's another story). Coring results in a much lighter panel that is still as strong - at least at first. A balsa-cored hull will have end-grain balsa blocks set in the mold after the first layers of roving are set in. Imagine if you took a 2-by-4, and using a chop saw, whacked a bunch of 3/4- inch to 1-inch long pieces off of it. Now stick those pieces in the semi-solidified fiberglass resin, with the grain end facing outwards and inwards, trimming them as you go to fit them as tight as possible. Now pour resin over the whole thing until all the cracks between the blocks are full, and seal up with a few layers of glass mat and resin. You have a sandwich with the wood in the middle. The wood adds its own strength to that of the fiberglass roving and mat. The reason to use blocks set end-on is so that if water does get into the wood, it won't travel very far. In the late 1960's, several boatbuilders tried using glass over plywood (here in the Northwest, Tollycraft and Fairliner were the two big offenders). Biiiiiig mistake. Any water that got into the wood travelled all along the wood plies, rotting out the entire core of the boat. Ultimately, however, you run into problems. Sooner or later, your customer will drill holes in your hull or decks for drains or to mount stuff and they won't bed it properly. Or a fitting will work lose. Rail stanchions are notorious for this due to the flexing they get as people use them to climb on or off the boat, or pull the boat into the dock or push it away, or lean on them. The bedding compound will crack or pull away, and now you've got a water leak every time it rains. The water gets into the wood coring and we're off to Dry Rot City. Soon there's a big soft spot where the core wood has rotted out, and you've got to grind off the outer layers of fiberglass well beyond the rotted area, chunk out the rotten wood and some of the surrounding good wood unit you're sure you've got all the wood that might be infected with the fungus out, replace the core wood, build the outer fiberglass layers back up, and fair them into the existing hull. Spendy, if you're having a boatyard do it. This is why, if you ever consider a cored boat, don't even think of a "fully-cored" boat. This means it's got coring below the waterline, and what that means is that any leakage around through-hulls is going to create a rotten spot. And as more has been learned about fiberglass, it is realized that a fiberglass hull that's constantly immersed in water will soak up some water. It's fine; the fiberglass will ultimately stablilze at some saturation point, but if you've got wood in there that's just looking to wick up water - very bad. Even when used above the waterline, coring can have problems. Generally speaking: cored hull sides and cabin sides - good. Cored hull below waterline, cored side decks, bridge decks and cabin tops - bad. Problems are as above: standing water and stanchion or fitting holes are going to introduce water into the core and rot it. In the last decade or so, builders have introduced new wonder materials, like foams, for coring. The jury is still way, way out on that. I want to see how they hold up after 40 years, but early reports of catastrophic failures (where entire sheets of outer fiberglass pull away from the foam core because they lose adhesion) don't augur well. So, rejoice! You have very little coring on your boat (the salon cabin top/bridge deck, I believe, is partially cored). The ramifications are that you have a boat that you don't have to worry about soft spots in your hull that lead to expensive repairs. The downside is, as I've stated, your boat weighs a lot more than a balsa cored boat, with the attendant fuel costs. As an example, according to the 2008 Power Boat Guide, the 42 Uniflite Double Cabin weighs 35,000 pounds. The Carver 42 Motor Yacht with a fully-cored hull weighs in at 23,600 pounds. The Sea Ray 410/415/440 Aft Cabin series (43 feet at the waterline) weigh 23,000. Think about it! Your Uniflite has six TONS more water-pounding weight than those poser boats. That's not so bad. At anchor with a small chop, you'll be sleeping soundly, while they're breaking out the Dramamine. And if you get caught out in a blow, quartering through five-foot seas, your Uniflite will crush the waves, while they'll be saying Hail Marys. And your wake will roll 'em on their scuppers, too! My other comments (and I'll keep it brief) concerns the heat. If you're moving to the Northwest, by all means invest in the hydronic heat. You won't regret it. The electric heaters are fine if you're going to be nailed to a dock somewhere, but if you're planning any cruising that will involve nights at anchor, you'll be glad of the heat on cold mornings (basically all year except about six weeks in July and August). Even if you're always going to be tied up at docks with shore power (and as you go north there are fewer and fewer of these), you may find yourself at a dock with 15-amp service. One 1,500-watt heater draws around 13 amps. I'm guessing you've got an electric range and microwave in the galley, but with 15-amp service you get to use the range (only), one electric heater (only), or the microwave and maybe a small appliance. And if your hot water heater element kicks on while any of these are running, too bad, so sad. The hydronic heater can also be plumbed (at very minimal expense) into your hot water heater and into your engine cooling circuits. When at anchor for several days, you'll can have hot water without running the generator or an engine for an hour. You'll also increase engine life and ease of starting by keeping the engines constantly warm, so that water doesn't have a chance to condense out of the air in your cylinders and crankcase. Lastly, if you're moving up here and you plan extended cruising, you've got the best engines for it. Yes, they're loud. Yes, they vibrate. Yes, they can be smokey if not tuned right. But pull into any hole-in-the-wall fishing village between Olympia and Point Barrow, Alaska, and there will be somebody who can work on them, even if they're half-drunk and stink of fish guts. And he probably has all the parts in his garage. I hear all these guys bragging about their M- A-N and Mercedes-Benz and Steyr and Yanmar and who-knows-what-else Diesels, and I just imagine the cost of flying in a factory specialist and the required parts when you spin a rod bearing in Queen Charlotte Sound. Hah! I'm jealous - if and when I upgrade from my 36, a 42 DC or 48 YF with J&T Detroits is my dream boat. Enjoy! --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "UnifliteWorld" group. 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