Picked up our Miracle 20 yesterday. After looking it over, I finally found the "advertised" soft spot about half way forward of the crossbar on the Port deck, not too large.
The one that disturbs me is a soft spot on the Starboard deck in between the daggerboard trunk and the tramp rail, basically the whole length of the trunk and extending fore of it. There is also gelcoat cracking around both trunks but the Port side is solid.
Is this a "classic" spot for 20's to get soft?
I'm thinking of repairing as if it was delam?
Any thoughts or comments?
Probably like all other delams: Water left inside the boat+ heat + sunshine = foam becomes brown crumbles between the skins.
1. Mark then Cut the skin off with a Skilsaw set to 1/16 of an inch or just a bit more.
2. Peel it up to see what you find and clean up the mess. 3. If wet brown sawdust crumbles... decide to fill with canned polyU foam which is difficult and messy to sand to get flat. But is possible, then replace deck skin.
4. Or clean up and fill with hard polyurethane 3/16 inch flat stock surfboard foam, sand and replace skin= clean job.
5. Or fill hole with glass fiber mat and microballoons before putting the skin back on= heavy repair.
6. WORST finding- If the underskin (below the foam) is all shot and hanging down, this is usually when Hobie 16 and 18 hulls are sawed up and dumped. Building this up is heavy and ends up ugly but can be done, is there is a hull worth saving.
Great tip. I've only read about drilling holes and adding weight, errr, epoxy making the spot hard again. Removing the skin to visually inspect makes sense.
Luckily, I found someone who wanted that boat more than me and ended up purchasing a meticulously maintained H20 with no structural problems.