Foam in VEC hulls?

[void7910]

Likely on the hunt for a boat again. Wondering if the Glastron/Larson VEC hulls have floatation/structural foam in them? Coming from a Bayliner/Maxum build that was all plywood and wet foam :blue:

 

[jimmbo]

They have foam in them, some later years use structural foam in the transom as well. Any boat can get wet foam. Myself, I would never purchase another boat made with the VEC process. I've seen too many with resin voids/dry glass

 

[tpenfield]

Yes, but they use dry foam for the VEC hulls

Don't blame the foam for a wet boat . . . it is an innocent bystander to moisture penetration.

 

[jkust]

Lots of boats have foam in them. Any boat can have wet foam if it gets stored wrong or had water penatration that didnt get addressed. It's not the boat, it's the owner. Wood in a boat is a good thing and the properties are hard to match with plastics and composits in the structural areas. Everything has a downside and wood happens to be rot regardless how it happens. Vec is a cost saving process sold as a benefit but was just good marketing to people in the low end boat market. I remember the day it started as it was a big news story in my state where the boats first started being manufactured with the process. VEC boats quickly had a lot of oddball cracking and build quality issues that you didn't see In the same way on hand laid boats. Vec is great used because presumably the boat has already had its issues fixed by now plus they fall into the dime a dozen category of Lake boats so they are cheap.

 

[Scott Danforth]

Boats still have a design life of 15-20 years before needing an overhaul. They are not intended to last forever.

Foam is still used for flotation

Remember, the VEC process wasnt intended to build a boat to last forever, it was intended to build a boat faster to sell more in a given period of time to make more money. Hours vs days to create a hull.

 

[ondarvr]

I spent a lot of time at that plant, as a supplier I did tech service for them, I would also periodically do multi week audits of the production process (this was years ago). The VEC plant was very impressive for the time, it was designed more like an automotive production line than a typical boat building shop, very clean, well lit, no odor and automated where possible. The biggest problem they ran into was that they could build far more hulls than could be sold, 3-4 hulls could be built an hour, hard to sell that many a day, every day, month after month.

Normal production is very dependent on the skill and attention to detail of the person actually working on that hull, so the quality could vary a great deal from boat to boat. The VEC system was very repeatable, so if you get it "right" it's more likely to be "right" every time, but if you get something wrong, then every hull is wrong until you find out and fix it, which takes time, since the VEC method was new it took a little while to dial everything in.