Foam/fiberglass VS Plywood

[fuzioncore]

Hey everyone, this is my first (of many most likely) post. I obtained an old 14ft aluminum V-Hull fishing boat and trailer for free from my dad who has had it sitting around forever. since he has a 16ft one that he has all geared up.

As of right now the boat is pretty much stripped it is an aluminum shell with some old weathered plywood making a sketchy deck platform and back bench seat. basically a project that was started years ago and never finished.

My plans with the boat are to make a much smaller deck (front 1/4 of the boat) some side storage bins, a couple swivel seats and a rear bench with compartments for the fuel tank and battery.

I was originally planning on pulling out all the existing wood and replacing it with new, water seal treated wood and carpeting it. the problem I see, is that this hull isn't all that deep and I dont want to add a bunch of extra weight especially since my fishing buddy is a 6'4" tall 330 lb manchild.

Now, I have never fiber glassed anything before, which makes me kinda want to do it instead of wood that much more but I was thinking I could get me some nice sheets of the blue or pink insulation foam from [insert local hardware store here] and build out the framing for wverything, then gey some of that nifty A/B Poly expanding foam and fill in every thing, once that all cures up nice I would shave and sand it all smooth then resin it and lay a bunch of CSM fiberglass matting maybe 3 or 4 layers of mat? the either carpet or gel coat it.

I figure it would be lighter than wood, and virtually unsinkable. on the other hand I could be horribly wrong and end up swimming back to shore.

I plan on taking pics of the entire process either way I go ahead with this.

thanks in advance for any advice/suggestions

[rwatson]

It might be worth doing a search of the forums for the other dozen threads that wanted to do a similar thing.

The first things that might produce a possible disappointment are the words

"CSM fiberglass matting maybe 3 or 4 layers of mat?" and "I figure it would be lighter than wood"