[Public-List] Bulkhead through companionway?

[Rachel]

On Mar 11, 2008, at 9:18 PM, Andrew M Shaw wrote:

> At the forward end is a 3/4" ply floor timber but
> nothing directly under where the bulkhead rests except the balsa cored
> step. So I'm not surprised it had caved in. I will correct this in the
> repair process and transfer the load to the keel.

I'm not speaking directly to your boat here, as I'm not very familiar 
with the liner boats.  But I've wondered about where it's best to 
transfer loads in a fiberglass boat with integral ballast.  It seems 
like it might be best NOT to transfer loads to the ballast pig (at 
least not many of them), because really, it's just a chunk of iron 
sitting inside one bit of the hull's fiberglass (whereas on, say, a 
wooden boat, there are significant structural members down there, such 
as the keelson).

Since a fiberglass boat is typically more of a "unibody" type 
structure, maybe it makes more sense to spread the load out with 
tabbing to the sides of the hull, etc.?  Of course that's not to say 
you can't have any load on the keel, but I do wonder how best to spread 
out the load, if one has "the opportunity" to redo the bulkheads and 
some of the surrounding structure (vs. purposely trying to transfer the 
load to the ballast with a compression post).

Physicists and boat designers feel free to pipe in!  :)

Rachel


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