Floor ideas

Now that I have the grab bar all situated, I think I want to put a floor into my G3 1548 VBW. With that, I have a few questions:

Marine grade plywood? Either 1/2” or 3/4”? And I am expecting to have to apply a few coats of a sealant to it?

I also thought about carpeting, but carpet can get wet and nasty, and affect the wood from what I have read.

What other products would should be considered for covering the wood? I found something called Hydroturf that is sold in sheets, but have never used it before.

Lastly, is it vital to put foam down in between the ribs, or anything at all? The idea is I can pop the floor out as needed for cleaning/maintenance.

There is no need for extra foam from a floatation standpoint, since the boat is already flotation rated to the weight on the ratings tag. The benefit of foam between the ribs is that it provides more support than you you'd think and weighs virtually nothing. If you do like I did, and cut up foam board, it can be popped out after the floor just as easy for cleaning. My ribs aren't exactly evenly spaced so I just used a permanent marker and numbered them 1 to x starting at the front and also put an arrow on each pointing forward so they all go back in exactly the spot they came out. If you do use foam, you can also use a much thinner floor material. An Alumacraft rep told me they use 0.063" aluminum for their floors on the 1648 MV models. They can do this because they have foam (I assumed poured foam) between the ribs which provides support.

I think my advice would be to first decide if you want to use the foam board. If so, source that and cut it to the appropriate sizes. Then top with some thin scrap plywood (or buy a thin sheet if you know you can make use with it elsewhere if not for the boat) and place on top and walk around on it or even take it to the lake that way. See if it feels sturdy or comfortable to you. The feel test is about all that's needed for this IMO. I'd recommend you use aluminum if possible but large sheets are pricey and you would first have to purchase in order to test which would suck if you felt it wasn't adequate and needed to go a size up.

No Need for marine plywood. Exterior grade uses same glue. Marine just has less voids. Many here use the 'Old Timer's formula' which is mainly spar varnish to seal up the ply. I recommend putting the covering on 1st (vinyl or carpet) then screwing it down to the ribs, leaving the screw heads exposed. They will countersink-in some just with torque. This way you can remove floor with out having to recover it.

Plywood of any variant has never really made me happy in the long term. It is heavy, will absorb water eventually, and usually warps/splits at some point. It's only good point is that it is easily available. So for my current boat project (Alumacraft 1542) I am going to use FRP. It has to be backed by something. I usually put 1.5" thick 250 Foamular foam between the ribs anyway. It is light, rot proof, weatherproof, last forever. Bad point is low impact resistance. Check it out. Might work for you. Search the forum here as others have used it too.