plywood or solid wood battons

im desighning plans for a 12' wood hydroplane single step hull boat and i was wondering if plywood battons could be used instead of solid white oak or ash. im wondering this becouse it would be cheaper than solid wood and if it would be simpler to bend than solid wood if the battens were around 3/8 or 1/2 thick by 1"1/2 wide

 

If you're designing a boat, then you should know the physical differences between solid wood and plywood, used in this fashion. The answer would be "it depends", but generally, you'll be looking for a reasonable strength to stiffness/weight ratio, so the obvious choice sticks out like a sore thumb. A stepped hydro, isn't an easy thing to design, if you expect no bad habits at speed (easy to get in a fast stepped hydro), so the next obvious question is how much hydrodynamic understanding do you have, as and again, nailing down all the variables with a stepped hydro drives the pro's nuts, so you can just imagine what a novice might encounter. Lastly, with the exception of a SOF build, I wouldn't use ash in a boat, but maybe for trim pieces and the reasons for this should also be obvious, too.

I'm not trying to be coy with you Niska, but to develop a structure, there are some fundamentals you need to absorb (material physical attributes, structural calculations, etc.). My telling you isn't going to help, without this understanding. The same is true of the hydrodynamic aspects of the project.

I'll assume you're still Googling for information about stepped hulls, location of the steps and hopefully you've read and attempted to absorb the "Savitsky" method in the latest addition of "Professional BoatBuilder" magazine. If not, you'll have a very slight chance of developing a double stepped hull, of the right proportions and shapes, that will perform within reasonable expectations, not to mention safely.

Lastly, having seen your sketch of the double stepped hull, I can tell you that you're going to have huge stability issues once up to speed, if built to those shapes.