Rich~
I really appreciate your thoughts on this topic - I am from There's No Substitute for Experience School....
Question: Since I am re-building my 'glass Sneakbox at the moment - Do you recommend adding anything to the outside of the hull/ down the midline ? - to protect the surface from the inevitable abrasion from sand on the bottom of Great South Bay. It has never caused a serious problem on any of my boats - and even the "miracle, slick surfaces" concede that sand and shells will wear through any outer coating.
BTW: I like my skeg but otherwise have learned to avoid strakes or runners on my gunning boats.
All the best,
SJS
Steve, I hope that the you got the information you need, but barring that, I'll give you my experience as someone who has never built a sportfish, but has lived in a boat with a layer of Kevlar for the past 15 years.
My Snowgoose has a layer of 5 ounce Kevlar under a layer of 5 ounce glass (both over Meranti ply). The Kevlar is much more abrasion resistant than glass of equal weight. I flipped and reworked my hull after 10 years of hard use and in cleaning it up I found that the glass was rock abraded in many places down to the Kevlar, but in no cases was the Kevlar cut through. I feel that the Kevlar is many times more resistant to scraping - I have no feelings (or intention to test) on Kevlar's puncture resistance and I did not add it for a weight savings (but obviously if it is that much more wear resistant than you can get away with a thinner layup using it). I put it on for wear and it did well. I'm hunting in lots of rock along the coast, so not sand or shell, but sharp boulders.
Had I to do it again, I would have went heavier (thicker) on the cloth and probably not worried about the Kevlar - Devlin's schedules are very marginal for duckboats. The Kevlar is not needed, but I'm sure had I 2 layers of 5 or 6 ounce glass I would have had cuts through the glass. I wrapped 8" above chine to 8" above chine.
I'm sure you know that it is typical to cover any layer of Kevlar with glass, because the Kevlar is tough to sand and you never want it exposed at the surface where a sander can hit it (fuzzes).