Use of wood in Cobalt construction?

[AsLan7]

I am the person from THT who contacted Cobalt about the use of wood and when they went 'wood free'. Here is the complete email response.

"Dear (aka)TechieTechie ,
Thank you for your e-mail. That is an excellent question. I have been here at the factory for over 35 years and spent 15 of it building the
boats. We actually did not start using fiberglass stringers until the 252 came out in 1994. The composite liner floor came out at that time, but only on the 252. Every new model after that had the liner floor and fiberglass stringers with the exception of the 190 that came out in 1996.

In 1997, we began to install a composite foam transom on our boats, replacing the wood transom.

We have always used marine grade plywood in the construction of our boats. It is supposed to be resistant to water intrusion, but we ignored that and covered it first with resin, and once it was installed in the boat, we covered it with fiberglass. But even with that, care had to be taken. I hope this information helps."

Techie opinion, reading up on early model designs in boat magazines (as I like the 1st generation 263). Cobalt was painstaking in their build process in the early years. They completely cleaned and waxed each mold after, like, 5 boats. They had 3 cross-checks on layups to make sure there were no voids, crazy quality control. IMHO, that's why, even tho they did have wood in earlier models, they had very few hull failures. And, because their boats came so well outfitted (and very rarely used for offshore fishing) and had low hours, it was more rare for owners to add/replace items that breached the hull (such as depth sounders, replacing old OMC outdrives, etc) that would increase the risk for water intrusion.

That's my 5 cents.

This post on THT is what helped me hone in on year/model of boat I was looking for, thanks much for posting that!

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Yes, I’ve gleaned some great wisdom on that site as well.
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[Big Block Power]

Like we all learned at the tour they are very fussy with there molds. And still clean and wax them after every hull.
Nice read thanks. For some reason that response from cobalt sounds alot like Rick.

[thunder550]

Thanks for joining and posting! I think you were famous here before you joined

[TechieTechie]

It's funny, I'm sure there is more than 1 Rick...but yes, the response came from Rick Schoonover.

Seemed like a great guy.

[jma2@fuse.net]

Now if you have never watched this video, it's a classic. He tells the story of his Sea Ray purchase and the "minor" wood transom issue.

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He chronicles his saga here if you want more. Transom story starts with vid 10.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kopF4mu ... B574CD948D

Great video series. I learned a lot about boat construction, and I developed a new appreciation for the quality of construction of my Cobalt. I think anyone who is thinking of purchasing a used boat should watch this--at least the first few episodes.

[Big Block Power]

It's funny, I'm sure there is more than 1 Rick...but yes, the response came from Rick Schoonover.

Seemed like a great guy.

Yea that's the same famous Rick. Great guy. He was our tour guide.

[shrfdeputy]

This is my buddy's 1994 22 Tradition. Last year we were at TRL and it started taking on water at a pretty good rate. The bilge pump would hardly keep up. We tried our best to see where it was coming from, but the normal places we could think of were good. He sealed up the outdrive and slowed it down, but then he hit a stump towards the end of the year and knocked the fin off of his drive. He pulled the boat, brought it back to Wichita and made an insurance claim. The mechanic diagnosed the leak as a shifter boot...a $5 part, but said he had to pull the engine to fix it. The insurance allowed for the engine to be pulled to fix the damage, and the mechanic sourced a new lower unit with a warranty. They pulled the engine and drive, and found the transom was shot. The mechanic said it is the worst he's seen in a "newer" Cobalt. This is obviously something that started well before my buddy bought the boat a few years ago. It has never been stored in the water, but it was kept on a lift in a slip 6 months out of the year for the last 6-7 years. The silver lining is that the mechanic already had the engine and drive pulled, so he was VERY nice to him on the price to repair the transom. He picked it up last week, and we are going to work on getting the new lower broken in over our first trip to TRL in a few months.

[AsLan7]

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Wow That is bad.

Thanks for the pics SD.

Great to hear insurance is covering this. That bill could hurt if it were out of an individual's pocket. Looks like that mechanic does nice work too.

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[shrfdeputy]

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Wow That is bad.

Thanks for the pics SD.

Great to hear insurance is covering this. That bill could hurt if it were out of an individual's pocket. Looks like that mechanic does nice work too.

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They were actually out of pocket for the transom. That wasn't something they knew about, so they didn't include it in the claim. He only charged them $1,200 to fix the transom since he already had everything out though. And he definitely does excellent work. It is Barry from Barry's Westside Marine just outside of Wichita. I've seen his name come up on here before. He is great.

[AsLan7]

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Wow That is bad.

Thanks for the pics SD.

Great to hear insurance is covering this. That bill could hurt if it were out of an individual's pocket. Looks like that mechanic does nice work too.

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They were actually out of pocket for the transom. That wasn't something they knew about, so they didn't include it in the claim. He only charged them $1,200 to fix the transom since he already had everything out though. And he definitely does excellent work. It is Barry from Barry's Westside Marine just outside of Wichita. I've seen his name come up on here before. He is great.

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Ahh, roger that. ...and true, that would be insurance fraud if they tried to claim that wood rot as part of their outdrive strike damage. With the going rates and technician demand, $1,200 is certainly reasonable. You're right. It could have been a lot worse.

Thanks again for posting.

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[thunder550]

First Cobalt transom failure I've ever seen posted. But proves that wood is not indestructible no matter how well you prep it. I wonder what happened to allow his transom to rot where most others haven't?

[shrfdeputy]

First Cobalt transom failure I've ever seen posted. But proves that wood is not indestructible no matter how well you prep it. I wonder what happened to allow his transom to rot where most others haven't?

I’m not positive, but I personally think someone hit a log several years ago and caused some separation at the bottom of the drive. Water got to leaking in there, and then it got dunked enough that it just never could dry out. I about cried when I saw it in person.

[Debeste]

Very late to the party here but had a follow up question if anyone is still around.

Looks like that letter back from the Cobalt worker suggests that fiberglass stringers were standard after 1994 with the exception of the 190 in 1996. But the Cobalt brochures themselves have fiberglass stringers as standard on the 1996 190. But then the 1997 brochure says that fiberglass stringers are not available on the 190. Strange.

That letter had me thinking it was a good bet to buy something 1995+ but the 96 brochure has fiberglass stringers as not available on about half the boats that year.

Any idea whats going here? Am I just reading this wrong?

[shrfdeputy]

In my opinion you don’t really need to worry about the stringers. I wouldn’t want a wood floor or transom, but I’ve been to the factory and have seen how they encase wood in fiberglass. And here’s a little secret...there is wood in a brand new R5. I saw it. Not sure about the R6 or R8.

[Big Block Power]

In my opinion you don’t really need to worry about the stringers. I wouldn’t want a wood floor or transom, but I’ve been to the factory and have seen how they encase wood in fiberglass. And here’s a little secret...there is wood in a brand new R5. I saw it. Not sure about the R6 or R8.

Yep there is wood in a couple of places in all cobalts.