Re: aristocraft funliner
That is a quality boat and back in the mid '60's I would have traded one of my kids for one (kidding of course.....I think Grin).
Back then wood was used for stringers as it absorbs a lot of impact with little reaction, was cheap and easily worked into the molded hull. Problem was they usually used northern pine or other soft woods (because they were usually more uniform and didn't warp like the heavier duty Southern Pine liked to do, and weighed less) but as a result they rotted easily if exposed to long periods of water/drought/water/soaking sort of treatment.
So the practice was to encapsulate them in fiberglas and resin. Great idea if you could guarantee the seal which you couldn't and the down side was that once you got water in there you couldn't get it out as it had no where to go. That's why today you have composite honeycomb and no wood....mfgrs finally wised up...course you can only guess as to why...hopefully it was to supply a better product because the upgrade obviously was way more expensive to build.
On decks, obvious material is plywood. Even if you have an upper cut mfgr using marine ply, you still have wood....ply-wood, (many more plies per unit area and marine waterproof glue) and it has the same problem. Some mfgrs coated both sides of the deck prior to assy, and some only the top as it was too much of a problem to coat the under side. One I know of one who did both then put wet resin on the stringers and around the perimeter which allowed him to glue the deck to the stringer....he now uses honeycomb composite.
Same with transoms, but they were usually immune unless you had a boat that sat partially filled with water....bought one of those once and had to replace the transom. But today, composites/honeycombs are the way it is......GREAT!
Anyway, visual inspection is best if you can get to it. Then comes the foot pressure test. Finally, on the transom, get two people; one at the helm and one watching the transom. Punch out of the hole and watch the transom for any flexing during the hole shot.
If you don't see anything and can walk the deck without ANY deflection and the hole shot doesn't produce ANY deflection of the transom then, if the price is right, JUMP ON IT!!!!! But you already bought it so I hope for you it passes the test.
My 2c,
Mark
