Dave,

If bulkheads were that important, why does Pygmy even suggest building without them and using a sea sock (as I did on my Arctic Tern)? I built my Tern hollow end-to-end, yet the deck is strong enough to stand on (not a test I'd recommend.) I'm finishing a stripper, with bulkheads and hatches this time, and I used 1/8" birch plywood with only a couple coats of epoxy and a very small fillet of thickened epoxy. Not in the water yet, but I expect them to hold up well. They will only be supporting vertical loads and keeping water out of the ends of the boat. Many production boats use foam bulkheads siliconed in place.

Dean

: I'm building a Pygmy Coho and getting started on the hatches and bulkheads.
: The instructions call for glassing both sides of the plywood bulkhead and
: then using glass tape to attach the bulkheads to the boat. I'm tempted to
: simply put a couple of coats of epoxy on the bulkheads and then glue them
: in place making a nice fillet on each side.

: I've found there is often a good reason that the instructions say to do a
: task a certain way but in the case it seems like overkill. I read the
: minicell versus plywood bulkhead discussion a while back realized that
: there are some on this board that will tell me that minicell is the way to
: go. But I've decided on plywood for certain.

: If I skip the glassing and taping am I headed for trouble?

: -DaveW