Internal liners...good or bad?

[40 South]

As the title says.............

Internal liners..........good or bad? Pros or cons?

[neilpride]

For me Bad...

Pros.. For the builder to build faster, to save cost, to acomodate bulkheads , furniture, cabinets , for thin hulls is a reinforced grid helping the hull to be more rigid, is clean, and in the production line allow to finish a hull way faster than a old fashion construction.


Cons.. Imposible in many boats to reach critical hiden hull areas in case of flooding or collisions, limber holes some times allow to trap water inside of the grid, bulkheads some times are just tabed in sides, bottom rest in the liner and top to , lots of noises inside in some brands due flexing, water tanks sometimes are enclosed and glased in the liner , liners are glued with a stuff called Plexus in many cases, saying that i will say is a Mass Production boat feature!!!!

[sailorboy1]

all depends on the boat and whether it is really a liner or just a little pan

[minaret]

Bad. Really bad. Only good for the builders bottom line.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by 40 South

Internal liners..........good or bad? Pros or cons?

Originally Posted by Don L

all depends on the boat and whether it is really a liner or just a little pan

Originally Posted by minaret

Bad. Really bad. Only good for the builders bottom line.

[S/V Alchemy]

Do you mean a hull liner or a cabin liner (overhead, sides) or both?

I have different feelings about both, much as I love insulation, but not foam and not below the WL.

Generally, I prefer to have access to everything I can, because rust never sleeps, nor leaks cure themselves. I generally find the "modular" form of modern boat construction is better for the builder than the end-user...sort of an Apple vs. PC contrast, I suppose (oh, no, he didn't!).

[Hydra]

IMO, bad.

After a not-so-hard collision (no hole!) when docking a Bénéteau First 27.7 (not my boat), the liner came unglued from the deck in the area. But how would you attach it again, since the outer skin isn't apparent inside? Since then, the deck squeaks when somebody walks on it: loss of stiffness.

Alain

[Sabbatical II]

In the ideal world, there would be no liners and every boat hand built to premium quality. However most markets are driven by price, not quality. At the boat shows they all look nice and shiney so no one wants to pay for quality, just whinge about the lack of it when it all goes wrong.

[Kenomac]

It's not really a question of good or bad, but rather what one must expect when buying a production yacht vs a custom or semi custon yacht. Full access to all mechanicals, hoses and wiring is obviously prefered via the non-inner liner vessels. The liner boats have extremely restriced access to important items, plus... Locating deck and hardware leaks becomes an enormous headache. It's not like you can just start cutting holes in the liner with a sawsall to look for stuff.

[misfits]

Originally Posted by 40 South

Internal liners..........good or bad? Pros or cons?

That was one of the reasons I bought a small Sabre. Seems most of the other boats I looked at had liners & smelled of mold. Once that stuff gets a foothold on the bottom of the liner, it's pretty tough to mitigate. The Sabre on the other hand, I just removed the parts that were trashed & replaced with new. Can't do that with a liner.

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by misfits

That was one of the reasons I bought a small Sabre. Seems most of the other boats I looked at had liners & smelled of mold. Once that stuff gets a foothold on the bottom of the liner, it's pretty tough to mitigate. The Sabre on the other hand, I just removed the parts that were trashed & replaced with new. Can't do that with a liner.

Excellent point. Our last boat which had a liner also had a very mysterious mold and sewage smell we could never seem to locate. I used to treat the odor with ozone once a month so that I could live with it. Treating with ozone is actually a horrible idea I found out later, it eats up all the rubber bits.

[40 South]

Originally Posted by S/V Alchemy

Do you mean a hull liner or a cabin liner (overhead, sides) or both?

Either.


My original post was referring to full liners (drop in internal liner that with furniture mouldings etc). I wasn't aware there were partial liners/floor pans.

[David_Old_Jersey]

I think better than not having one!, for a new boat and if designed into the boat as an integral part of the boat to reduce weight of the hull by adding stiffness (rather than simply as a cheap way of attaching the furniture - although no harm in that also being the case).

But as the boat gets older then becomes ever more less ideal than none simply because the older the boat the more likely to need access for fixing, as well as simply an unstuck liner (age or accident) would be hard (or impossible?) to fix well, or at all!

Of course folks who buy new boats are not concerned about the 4th owner! or what happens to her in 10 years time - and the manufacturers build accordingly. The market always gets what the market demands, whether it is a good thing or not.

[S/V Alchemy]

Exactly. I speak as the fourth owner of a 1973 boat and the third owner of a 1988 boat.

Access matters. The 1973 required extensive retabbing of cabin furniture and bulkheads. That would have been very difficult indeed had she been built like most current boats.

I would also add that locating leaks is complicated with liners. On my old boat, I found a leak by running coloured chalk inside of cabinetry directly on the inside of the hull. The next time it rained, the streak in the chalk showed me where the leak was. Try that on a Bendytoy.

That said, cabin liners down to the waterline, IF REMOVABLE, keep the boat quieter and cooler in hot weather. But you have to be able to reach stuff and you have to be able to trace leaks. Trapped water yields corrosion, mold and laminate failure.

[boatpoker]

I've surveyed one new (1yr. old) boat where the liner never was glued (plexus) to the hull and the boat was coming apart. I've seen four older boats (86 -88') where the liners separated from the hull around the keel/mast step. Like everything else it works fine if its done right. Problem is you can't tell until it starts to come apart and there is no fix unless you have an unlimited line of credit.