QUESTION: What is the Integral Strength-Grid System™?
ANSWER: It is a labor-intensive method of construction that is used to bond together all sub-sole components into a strong cohesive unit which forms the backbone of the LRC SEries yachts. The tanks, instead of simply being dropped in place, are heavily laminated within the hull-- Integral FRP Tanks. The combination of lids, baffles, stringers, and even the sub-sole, all interact to form a very rock solid structure to spread primary sea loads over a very large surface area. As an added benefit, the tanks due to their extra strong integrated construction, serve as a double-bottom safety effect.

Integral Strength-Grid System™
Water-tight Collision Bulkhead heavily glass bonded to the hull and structural dividers forward of it. This creates an extremely strong matrix structure.
Integral tanks, lids, baffles add tremendous strength to sub-sole structure to spread loads over hull. Lids are heavily bonded so the tanks create a double-bottom effect.
Structural sub-sole are laminated around its entire perimeter adding a complete bonding between grid structure and hull.
Stringers are heavily glassed into position with extra heavy laminates and resins. Entire grid structure acts as a single strong unit.
Michael Kasten of Kasten Marine Design in Port Townsend, Washington with over 20 years of boat building and design experience says,
               "Integral tanks provide a number of design benefits. Consider the following:
--They prevent the volume lost with separately installed non-integral tanks.
--They eliminate the dead space present around non-integral tanks, thus abolishing yet another place where water and objects can collect.
--They reinforce the hull with baffles and tank-faces that are attached to, and therefore reinforce the hull skin.
--They create a double-bottom beneath the sole so damage to the hull where the tanks are located won't compromise the watertight integrity of the vessel. In other words if you puncture the hull in the tank area, you will lose the fluid in that tank compartment, but the boat is not likely to sink."
From “There Are No Maintenance-Free Metallic Fuel Tanks” by United States Coast Guard Boating Safety Circular
               “While FRP fuel tanks [integral fiberglass tanks] have proven their effectiveness, they are very labor-intensive to produce, making this option time-and cost-prohibitive to many of the high volume manufacturers of low and medium priced boats.”
Yacht designer Paul Bieker of Seattle, Washington says,
               "Integral tanks and their baffles provide structural strength to the hull," he continues "Non-integral task provide the opposite, by creating a void where structure cannot be." Further Bieker adds, "As a teenage, I spent a year and a half cruising down in the South Pacific," he concludes, "while anchored in an atoll, we were hit by a surprise storm that knocked a fiberglass boat into the coral. It was hold by a metal fuel tank, and sank. The fact that the boat my not have been lost if that tank was integral made a lasting impression on me."
From "Offshore Yachts" by John Rousmaniere
             “The sides and tops of integral tanks can add to the longitudinal strength and stiffening of metal and fiberglass hulls if they can be arranged to be continuous over a reasonable distance, or at least between structural bulkheads.”