Dimensioning of a deck on a speedboat?

[Stilldouble]

Hi,

I am going to rebuild the deck on my 23" single outboard V-bottom offshore racer/cruiser, for several reasons. Current weight of the boat, without engine is around 1200-1300 lbs.
1) The current deck is built from plywood, GF and a gazillion number of of quite sturdy plywood stringers. It must be possible to get this lighter and stronger.
2) The room under the deck, roughly 12 ft long is very difficult to use for anything.
3) I would like to upgrade the seating area anyway.

Now for my questions;

I was thinking of building a sandwich construction, using 20-30 mm of Divinycell as the core, probably wowen GF and polyester resin (for cost reasons). Possibly with small stringers, built by glueing (using polyester glue) 2 inch wide strips of divinycell to the rest of the core, maybe 10 inch apart, from side to side. The shape of the current, and future, deck is slightly arched.
I want the deck to be light and strong, strong enough to carry a person or two on the deck. What is your suggestion regarding the number of layers of GF on each side of the core, and also how thick GF weave I should go for, both in terms of strength and also ease of handling during soaking of the weave?

Any ideas, anyone?

Best regards,
/Stilldouble

[Pericles]

Get the Gougeon Brothers book on boat construction. http://www.wessex-resins.com/westsystem/index.html

All that you wish to do will be explained.

Pericles

[Stilldouble]

Hi Pericles!

Very nice link you gave me with a lot of interesting issues to read about. Thanks!

Best regards,

/Stilldouble