Foam floatation

L

laser123300

New Member
Hi,

I was doing some repairs on my boat yesterday, when I discovered that there was foam blocks inside the hull of the boat instead of the inflatable rubber blocks. Since I bought the boat little white pieces of foam had been draining out of it, I guess the foam is flaking off as it moves around. I checked our other boat which is much older and the boat had the rubber air bags that were original with that boat.

Any idea's on why this is and if it is necessary to replace the foam blocks!

Thanks :confused:
 
Maybe a different builder. Either way the foam and bags are both class legal. Yes, replace them with the bags because the foam does hold water.
 
Ditto... replace them, especially if they are breaking up like that and coming out the drain. I replaced mine by cutting a port, cutting the bags off of the foam blocks, and then cutting up the foam blocks themseleves with a stiff putty knife... it took a few hours to get all of them chunked up to where they would fit through the IP hole...
 
The foam blocks which were used on some boats is definitely a water sponge and should be removed. However, you MUST replace this flotation with plastic air bags called cubitainers. They are there to keep the hull afloat if you get holed or the hull/deck joint fails during a race or knock-down. I believe there are three forward and three aft, but someone else may know for sure. They are available from companies which sell Laser parts.
 
Bungo Pete said:
The foam blocks which were used on some boats is definitely a water sponge and should be removed. However, you MUST replace this flotation with plastic air bags called cubitainers. They are there to keep the hull afloat if you get holed or the hull/deck joint fails during a race or knock-down. I believe there are three forward and three aft, but someone else may know for sure. They are available from companies which sell Laser parts.
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I've been filling mine up with empty 2 liter Dr Pepper bottles :p:D
 
Don't quote me on this, but Mountain Dew bottles are faster :D. Seriously, I don't know anything about what is or is not class legal, my point was that you need to have some sort of flotation in the event of catastrophic hull failure.
 
Merrily said:
Oh, yeah! That's got to be class legal! :rolleyes:
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I don't think people are going to worry to much about that until I start coming in more than 100 yards behind the rear of the pack ;)

... and if it gets to the point where I really get into racing and I start being competitive I'll sell this POS and buy a new-ish boat. Until that point, I'll do my repairs on the cheap.
 
I bought the cubitainers, I should have done the dr pepper bottles. I'm sure also that I could make a pretty good case for the class legality of dr pepper bottles... It would certainly have less effect on the performance of the boat than, say, a teflon coating on the hull.
 
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