1985 sea explorer

[Markmurd]

So I'm refurbishing a 1985 15ft sea explorer when I first inspected the boat I noticed that inside the forward cabin that the moldings had been joined together with rivets and a large majority of these rivets had failed and the moldings had separated (ie the deck mold from the house mold and from the hull mold) I have since repaired this problem by grinding back the deck mold by 3 in. exposing the top lip of the hull by 2 in and the bottom lip of the house by 2 in giving me about 3 1\2 in of exposed fiber glass to work wit hi also removed all the rivets I could get my hands on around the entire boat and grinding back those areas as well (ie under the gunnels and back along the stern transom upper edge . I  joined the mold parts by laying up first a strip of roving then 2 strips of mat I also glassed in all the bulk heads forward and back to the inside of the deck and house mold. Now I have worked as a rough in laminator for a few years for both North Coast Yachts and San Jaun Sail Boats and those companies always glassed their molds together does anybody know why this particular sea explorer was held together with rivets or are all arimas put together this way

[Svinny88]

If you are talking about the cap to hull joints , most bottom and middle tier boats have this joint fastened together with either rivers or screws   Upper middle tier boats and top tier boats are thru bolted, wth stainless steel machine screws and locknuts , and some are glassed  together   

[Markmurd]

Thanks learn something new every day with old boats when I put my bumper rail back on in going to use stainless through bolts where I can so that and the glass and putty work should make this little arima some what bullet proof