Plywood in transom?

[Twray]

Having a difficult time trying to find out what is used in Z boat transom. On the Nitro web site their description is fiberglass encapsulated composite transom. Since plywood is considered a composite, does anyone know what is actually used as a composite in Z boats transoms?

[KCLOST]

I toured the factory about 5 years ago, and the transom has no plywood in it at all. The primary component of the transom is a solid piece of some kind of glass reinforced polymer and it looked approx 2" thick, but I didn't measure that . No photos were allowed during the walk-through as well. It is one solid piece that is cut to shape at the factory. This is then fiberglass bonded to the hull and the stringer system (which also has no wood or plywood in it) is then bonded to the transom and hull as well. The transom is a grey color and it looks very similar to coosa board but unlikely that was what it exactly was. It looked very dense to me almost like a solid Resin counter top material would look.

It is hard to find facts about transom materials from the boat manufactures, I believe they always mention "composite" material, so they are open to material changes that may come up in the future. But no doubt about it, no plywood in the transom or stringer system.

[KCLOST]

From Nitro,

"The material that we use for our transoms is a composite made by Kay-co composites, called Kay-Cel. It is a fiberglass reinforced High Density Polyurethane. All of our boats, use a 2” Kay-cel transom, except for our Z17; which uses a 1.5” Kay-cel transom."

I hope this helps.