The boat building industry has entered an unprecedented period of experimentation of new materials for use in the fabrication of what were once called fiberglass hulls. Those of us who have been around the boat building scene for a while have seen a lot of new ideas and materials come and go over the years. Some have met with success, but many have met with failure, or one way or another have proved unsuitable for building production-line boats.

Increasingly, we find a new term being introduced to define what we once called a plain fiberglass hull, "composites." Composite merely means the combination of two or more materials to make a whole. Fiberglass, a combination of plastic resin and glass fibers, is a composite. But, in the marine industry, composite increasingly comes to mean the use of a third material, a core material such as balsa or foam.

Boat buyers should be aware of several important points when considering the purchase of a new boat. The first is that new resins, reinforcements and core materials are being developed at an unprecedented rate. Industry magazines and trade shows are promoting a dizzying array of new materials. Foams laced with plastic and aluminum honeycombs, new arrangements of glass fiber reinforcements in an apparently endless array of new weaves and fiber configurations, plus a wide array of new plastic resins and chemical additives, are being widely promoted.

The second point is that the boat building industry, as a whole, performs very little research and development into the materials it selects and utilizes for hull construction .It is important to understand that proper R & D of a new material is extraord inarily expensive and take as long as 3-5 years to test and prove the application of new materials. Therefore, because of the extreme cost, the past history of the industry has been to try a new material first and ask questions later. Over the years, nume rous builders have incorporated untried, untested materials in their product lines, thus making guinea pigs of their customers. And it is this lack of R&D that, in the past, that has been responsible for so many of the hull failures that have plagued the industry.

The old knowledge seems to have been lost as builders are once again coring hull bottoms, only this time with plastic foam. The idea, apparently, is that foam won't succumb to water absorption and other problems that were encountered with balsa. Materia ls suppliers claim that because foam has "closed cells" that the material won't absorb water. Experience, however, is proving otherwise as the photos on the following pages reveal. Water ingress into foam cores has proven a common occurrence which, once i t does, can result in very rapid deterioration of hull strength.

While many of these new materials grab center stage attention at trade shows, seminars and in magazine articles, promoting the many virtues, what attracts my attention is the lack of any test data to go along with these new materials. I am reminded of th e introduction of closed cell foam back in the early 1980's as the new miracle material for boat builders that was hyped as the ideal material for building boats that were stronger, lighter and less costly to build. Having once worked in a plant that buil t balsa cored hulls, I was well familiar with the technical data on balsa, including its strengths and weaknesses. What caught my eye, even back then, was that, of those few foam makers or distributors who even bothered to offer spec sheets on their mate rial, virtually all that I had seen had selectively provided only the most complementary data on their product. In other words, they sold the materials strengths while never mentioning its weaknesses. The result was that a few boat builders jumped onto the foam core bandwagon with disastrous results. Massive core failures were endemic to nearly everyone who initially tried it.

Over the years, many builders have gotten themselves into so much trouble using unproven materials and techniques that financially they were unable to fulfill their warranty commitments, went bankrupt and left their customers holding the bag. This is precisely the sort of thing we wish to avoid. The following are a few tips on how to avoid falling into the trap of purchasing an inferior product.

Be aware that boat building is a low capital investment manufacturing business that is easy to enter but hard to prosper in. During the last ten years, an estimated 80% of all builders went under, most leaving unresolved warranty claims. If warranties are important to you, choose your builder carefully.

When shopping for new or used boats, beware whenever the price of one builder's boat, as compared to a group of other similar boats, is substantially less. Quality is universally a function of price. No one builds a top quality boat sold at a discount price. Whenever the price of one boat appears to be too good to be true, it usually is. Chances are the reason is low quality.

Take the time to consider the quality of vessel you wish to purchase. Today more than ever, boats are designed to appeal to vanity, often at the expense of quality, safety and resale value. Determine how long you think you will own the vessel, and what is it likely be worth when it is time to sell. Remember that lower quality boats deteriorate and depreciate more rapidly than higher quality boats. Price should not be the only determining factor.

Use the top quality builders such as Bertram, Hatteras and Viking as the benchmark for comparison.

Once you've decided on the type of boat you're interested in, but before actually shopping the market, contact a surveyor and discuss the various types of boats that you are considering. Surveyors are usually familiar with the construction of the most popular builders and they will be happy to share with you their knowledge.

Once you've determined which particular vessels you are interested in, it is worth a call to the builder to find out whether their hulls and decks are cored and, if so, with what materials.

Discover faults and defects prior to taking delivery.

Saves time and repeat trips to the dealer for warranty repairs.

Correct design or engineering mistakes that may not reveal themselves until after the warranty period has elapsed.