Needing to get to a fitting the other day, I took a photo of the underside of my boats deck. This was Aldens first "glass" sailboat. Halmatic in the UK built the hulls and decks. The decks are solid glass and not all that stiff. Alden speced an egg crate of framing below for support. You can see the gray painted plywood cross beams and center stringer. Not long after, because there was more flexing as the boats were used, Alden speced another set of deck beams to be through bolted to the exisiting as well as the glass "ribs" that were built into the hull itself.

One thing for sure, this was all a heck of a lot of work. I'm sure they started looking for an alternative immediately.

Soon after, cored decks came into use, no doubt for this problem. They have turned out to have their own problems. Do we have a solution yet?

10 years ago I slammed a rock and sunk the boat. The remnants of mildew are still there I found. That's how far the water came up the starboard side. I should clean that up.