Following this
Keep in-mind not all welded boats are created equal
The blanket statement welded better is not really true
I can be, but not always
Hank
There's welding, and then there's welding.
More importantly, there's Aluminum, and then there's Aluminum.
Aluminum alloys come in various grades. Some hard, some soft, some brittle, some ductile.
Just as an example, the first boat I bought to take the G-kids fishing in was a little 14 foot Shasta with an 18 hp Merc. When I started drilling holes in the hull to mount rod holders and such, the Aluminum cut like butter. When we took the boat out on Brownlee Res and the wind came up in the morning at sunrise, the floor would visibly flex with impact of every wave. Within a half dozen outings, the floor had cracked at each flex point and water was coming in.
Brownlee is the first dam at the head of Hells Canyon. The lake averages maybe 1/4 to 1/2 mile across. But it is about 40 miles long. Each morning at Sunrise the breeze kicks up and produces six to eight inch chop.
We fished from the Shasta for two years, and periodically hit the switch on the bilge pump to remove the water.
Then I bought a 16 foot Lund hull. I built a console into it and put my little Merc 18 on it. Drilling holes in the Lund was night and day difference from the Shasta. The wall thickness was very similar, but the Aluminum in the Lund was much harder.
In the same lake, under the same conditions, there was no flex in the Lund hull.
You will find the same to be true of welded boats. Some are constructed of superior, expensive Aluminum alloys. Some are made of less expensive alloys, and are more prone to stress cracks or heat damage along weld lines.
Most of the better built boats will tout their alloys in their advertising copy. It pays to become familiar with the alloys, or at least know how examples of the boat model has performed for others before investing a large sum of hard earned money.
