B there’s a basic difference between stick built and modular construction. In stick built you can see and get to everything without major destruction action. You can build a poorly constructed stick built boat. A few tabs to hold a bulkhead or a resin rich layup. But with modular you’re dependent on the modules being glued together correctly. Once they are you have no ideal how it was done, if it was done correctly and just have to wait for failure to know it was done inadequately unless you employ some form of destructive examination. A fundamental difference. Yes, you can build a good or bad modular boat and a good or bad stick built. However it’s so much easier to determine which it is with stick built. Wouldn’t bet my life on a lagoon out of sight of land let alone passage.
Personally would avoid buying a new and definitely used modular boat unless I had strong evidence the builder always adhered to best practices.
The EU system had a lot of builder input from what I can gather. It rates boats only at the time they leave the factory. Given metals oxidize and corrode, and boats work in a seaway that system is meaningless for a boat that has seen any use imho. For all its warts ABYC at least considers use and service life as did Norske and Lloyd’s.
There’s a huge difference in my mind between modular and stick built. A 40 year old Cherubini ketch went on huge seawall granite stones having broken free in a hurricane. Pounded on them and suffered damage. Brought to Delran NJ and hull restored to original strength. That part of the interior unscrewed to allow access, refinished and good as new. Solid glass and solid wood with mechanical fasteners. A modular boat would have been totaled. Reconstruction would have exceeded value. Modular boats are throw aways in general. A limited service life even without damage. Even a plank on frame wood boat can be kept in use for decades and decades at it original integrity.
USN did study service life for grp when resin and glass technologies were no where near the improvements that have developed since. Even back then service life was deemed so long as to be indeterminate. But they looked at stick built boats.
Have no problem with modules being used in a limited fashion. For things like showers and heads as long as it’s done in a fashion service and repair is accounted for. But the current mode of doing a hull in one mold, infill in another and deck/ house in a third then gluing them together leaves me cold. Sure that’s a simplification. There’s other modules. A grid to stiffen the hull and another for the engine(s) etc. but you get the idea. Limited access to electrical runs, hoses and other features that might fail or need service. No complete access to see structural integrity, great difficulty in repair. No thank you. Look at the way a Outremer is put together versus a Lagoon or a tenant boat to any of the fleet power cats in Caribbean charter service. Yes, I’d get on a Rapido 60 and go round the world. Much of it is modular and glued together. But that’s an exception not the rule at present.
