Risk of wood rot on a well maintained boat?

[Mark C. Schreiter]

Hi guys I am looking to build a 35' catamaran (either one of woods or waller) using either plywood/epoxy or foam core. Since I have experience with plywood and epoxy and zero experience with foam core, I would like to go with plywood and epoxy but the thought of wood rot makes me nervous. What are the chances of wood rot on a well maintained and properly sealed boat? Is it like less than 1% and essentially trivial or higher risk than that?

What are the things you have to do to maintain a plywood/epoxy boat to ensure no wood rot other than not crashing your boat? How often should you be inspecting the boat and what things should you be looking for?

Do a search on youtube for transom or stringer or bulkhead, repair, fix, rebuild, overhaul or something like that and you'll find with almost 100% certainty none of those videos will have foam cores.

sure in a perfect world perfectly sealed wood has a small chance of rot but at least for me, building a boat in my garage is a far from perfect world.

that being said, i'm sure there are countless boats that are far older than me, made from wood cores that are still doing fine.

however, at the end of the day i'd prefer fewer things to worry about or stress me out when i'm lying in bed so im all in for a no wood boat.