TOPIC: 1964 Starcraft Hollow Glass Stringers?

I have a 1964 Starcraft Bahama I'm restoring. After taking off the floor I realized that my stringer setup was much different than any other boat I'd ever seen or heard about on repair forums before. It appears as though the floor is reinforced with pre-formed sections of hollow glass stringers made out of the heaviest fiberglass matting and woven materials I've ever seen. They are so solid that I can jump up and down on them and they don't crack or give whatsoever. About 5 wood stringers join the sections together like ribs from port to starboard. These sections are untreated wood stringers that are almost completely rotted out. They appear to be tabbed in and then overlapped with about a foot wide section of the same reinforced fiberglass matting draped over them to join the preformed sections together.

My question is if I should bother trying to remove the wood or not since they don't seem to serve any function other than acting as a form for the original fiberglass matting that joins the sections together. I only replaced the one wood stringer closest to the transom because it appeared to act as both a form for the drain well and as a support to nail in the original floor. In fact the original floor was nailed into the top of the wood stringers, so maybe that was their purpose as well? I don't want to weaken the structural integrity of my boat if its already strong enough. I plan on only repairing a few weak spots I damaged putting in boat seat bolts years ago, gluing and glassing in the new deck down, filling most of the bow and floor with expanding floatation foam, and then painting it up.

So what do you think? Should I cut into them to replace the wood or not?

www.fiberglassics.com/glassic-forums/29-member-projects/62826-1968-starcraft-daytona-tr-17.html

Mine was the same. I removed the wood, what was left, and went over it with more glass. I didn't put any wood back.

jim18611865

I saw yours while searching for decks like mine. Yours looked very close to my construction and I saw that you removed the wood and glassed back over it. Your glass did not look quite as heavy as mine, so I wasn't sure if the same situation applied to me but since you glassed them back over and you had more stringers across the hull I thought yours looked very strong and would easily hold up your floor. There was only one person that had a boat floor exactly like mine, who posted pictures anyway, and he ended up cutting the tops off and filling the stringers with foam before reglassing. His hollow glass stringers were however in much worse shape and a third of the glass stringers had rotted and needed to be replaced.

I'm starting to think that since mine are in such good shape I will leave the rotten remnants of wood inside and just patch up the few small damaged spots and glue the new fiberglass covered floor down.

My father in law and I had to cut a few to get some of the wood out.
We could still stand on the ones we cut. It was then we knew they were still very strong. I used 1.5 oz. woven roving I believe. It is a heavy cloth, and looked exactly like what was in there. Keep it tight though.
You don't want the new floor any higher.
It even held screws, and we resined the underside of the floor when installing, so it was glued and screwed.

so you did strengthen it up with the heavy cloth. Today I patched up any weak spots on the floor. But to patch it I'm using fiberglass Matting and then a layer of woven on top. That's just to cover some gaps and holes caused by me. I'm using half-inch for the floor so it shouldn't be but I half inch higher than the old floor was maybe. I was going to use my Olympic weight set to hold the floor down while it bonded to the super adhesive on the glass stringers, but if that's will hold screws I'll try that if i need to.

Yours does look very thick. Mine was only one layer originally over the framing.
Yours will certainly hold screws, just get it really clean.
Watch out if you intend on making it 1/2" higher. There may be unintended consequences.
Get as much wood out as you can and try to keep the floor at the original height.