I saw the new video on the gt website and was interested in the new bracing. They say it is stronger...it sure doesn't look stronger than a 1x2 but I'm no engineer. Does anyone have any insight on this???

They have been using this for a little over a year now and I haven't heard anything bad about it yet. Seems like good stuff.


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I just don't see it being stronger, cheaper but not stronger. With the tubing you have extra protection everywhere the tubing sits on the hull, the hull thickness plus the wall of the tubing against the hull. So if you run stumps or hit something it has to be stronger in those areas. It may be as rigid but I would rather have the tubing.

Let me test one for a year.

They say it's stronger??

I think hat channel wouldn't be a bad idea to use. Save some weight and should be similar in strength.

But I think it would be harder to roll up the rake.


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Do they put it in the rake?

Take a piece of 1x2 tube and try and twist and flex it. Then do it with a piece of hat channel

I understand Daniel's point and knew it was coming, but that's before the hat is welded to a piece of plate. I agree the tube is the stronger shape standing alone.

The pic's in the original post seem to be of a pretty substantial material...Once it's welded in to give the hat channel its 4th side, it will be pretty damn rigid.

If you take a 5" strip of 1/8" plate 4' long....what would twist more: if it had a single 1 x 2 welded in the center of it on edge or if it had 4" hat channel welded down good?

And just to clarify.....my rig has 1x2 tubing, so I'm not being brand sensitive here.

Standard hat channel is probably what maximum of
.125 thick if not really a little less? The new stuff GT uses is custom made and supposed to be all 3/16 thick.


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Excel's been using 'hat' braces for years (even before MB bought them). I expect they are of similar overall frame strength to extruded braces. They hold up to the stumps in N. TX corps lakes.

Difference with the hat brace or the brace posted above is it can hook inside the hat/between the welds, the wider the hat or brace' legs', the more propensity to hook inside. From the picture, looks like the legs on those braces are far apart. The extruded brace is solid and hooks only between the braces. If you run stumps, I think the solid braces would be much better.

Excel hat braces:


You can see the shallow hooks inside the braces and deep ones between on this old Excel MW edition assaulted by the NorTX Corps lakes:

That's considered "holding up"?

The braces they are using are roughly 2" tall, 2" wide at the top, and no more than 3" wide at the bottom and doesn't have the flat spots on each side.


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Damn glad I don't have to run through that.

I hate stumps.. especially when the lake is up.. They sit just below the surface where you can't see them but WILL hit them if you have any sort of load in your boat at all and/or if your not running almost completely flat.. holy crap, Gary… You just gave me an idea.. Ive never hurd of anyone putting HIDS in there boats

I used hat section on my build. It has a wider foot print that tubing and is lighter. I have a 3/16 bottom and have hit all sorts of shit. Bottom looks like the day I built it.

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If you look in this pic, I coped all the hat section ribs and welded in cross braces so that the floor had a clean look. You can see the seam weld going across on the false floor.

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When the floor was sanded down and fully welded out, you can't tell that there was ever any bracing under the floor.

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I believe the hat channel you used is probably stronger than what gt uses because if the legs. That's an extra brake per side to strengthen it.

I also noticed the runners are not spaced evenly. I am not trying to stir the lot here as I own a gtr and have always liked their boats...but this design seems very questionable to me. So why not use the full hat braces? Cost? Does anyone know the price difference in materials

You can get whatever kind of extrusion you want made and they chose this kind. There is a reason why they used it but not sure of what it is.

They build more boats than any backyard builder on here does a year so they have figured something out.


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if any you machinist guys have solidworks at work, draw up each scenario with two braces and a 1/8 floor. label material as all alum. do FEA and put same single point load in middle of two brace and then again in the center of the brace. one test resembles stirke in middle of braces and one resembles strike directly in center of the brace.(this one will obviously be 1x2 winner but give you an idea how much hat design would flex vs non supported middle brace)
post results discussion over...