"Ding" resistance is a product of the core used and the laminate on top. A heavier core often results in less dings. But it's always weighted against weight of..

Delamination is an issue, but not often. You can go over the top and fill the foams surface with a thickened mix of epoxy before you add glass, but that's heavy. The same goes for infusion <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> Delamination is not a large problem today as far as I know. Technology must have improved since the early days, but I dont know the spesifics. Vacuum bagging is probably part of the solution.
Powerboats see far different loads than our beachcats, it's probably two different worlds engineering wise (I am no engineer, so I am guessing).

Carbon on top of E-glass is a waste unless you design it so the carbon is able to take all the load. Glass and carbon stretch at different lengths, so the carbon takes all loads until it snaps, then the E-glass can start taking the strain. It's like you hang a 100Kg weight from your roof in a bungee. The bungee stretches rather a lot, but if you add a steel chain and hang the weight on both the chain and the bungee the chain will take all the load unless you shorten the bungee (or almost at least, you can always do something funky with the setup, but you get the idea).


We are getting quite far away from the subject: New 20foot beachcat designs..