boat hulls.....rotting?

[*chris*]

ok...with an upcoming purchase of a new boat (hopefully). my grandpa is really concerned about getting a fiberglass hull boat. he used to have an old 70-something cobalt and the fiberglass rotted out in the back. i havent heard about that kind of stuff in a long time.....in fact other than that cobalt & a few others ive seen that are really old boats, i havent seen any newer boats like that. my question is, is that really a problem these days?

[Leggester]

I don't know. Possibly in another 25 years, you'll see the deteriorated fiber glass.

One of the things with the older boats was letting water between the gel and glass, also transoms were notoriously leaky. When water gets in there, you can get delamination of the glass. Many transoms were thinly covered plywood. Most now have a nice thick layer of glass over the wood. If wood is used.

Keep the scratches repaired and water out of raw ( not covered/sealed ) fiberglass and you shuold be fine.

[snowboardcorey]

Rot was most likely due to wood in the hull, you need to let your gramps know that boats are much different than they were 25 years ago. Many new boats have a lifetime hull warranty, and use composites instead of wood to help reduce deterioration.