Below are some photos of some little cracks in the under the starboard hull, and in the rear starboard transom around the lower gudgeon. I would really appreciate any advice as to the severity of this damage and what I should do about it. Previously that hull was basically watertight but now about 4-5 litres come out after an hour of sailing.
The last two pics are of discolouration around the port lower gudgeon, and tiny cracks around the pylon support.
I am completely new to sailing so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
Advice needed - Hobie 16 damage
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- Rank: Lubber
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The keel pics look very serious. The others are probably fairly easy repairs. -
- Rank: Mate
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Get professional help! It could be a serious safety issue if that hull fails in heavy seas. Better safe than sorry. Also, if that hull failed, the other could be next.
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Kenny Boudreaux
2010 C2 F18 USA 323
Goodall Design "Southern Area Rep"
Owner of Sailboxes.com
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I recommend start looking for a replacement hull. From the pictures that one is shot due to the crack along the bottom. The price to fix it would easily out weigh the cost of a solid used one. If you have insurance on the boat I may look into that as well. -
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You can get a replacement hull for less than replacing your boat. That hull is beyond help. -
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I wouldn't be so quick to write that hull off but then i'm the do-it-yourselfer type for sure. My 1st question is; is there any delamination of the foam-core areas (soft spots)- because if there are, that would weigh heavily on whether or not I would do the following. All of the areas shown in the pics are solid glass areas which are definitly fixable in my opinion. If this were my hull I would remove it from the tramp frame, turn it upside down on some saw horses and use a 4" hand grinder with a 40 grit wheel and remove the gelcoat around all of the cracked/fractured areas in order to get a proper assessment of the damage....accept for the area around the pylon. Judging from the pics of that area I would say those look like cracks in the gelcoat. I recently reworked both of my h16 hulls including a complete re-gelcoat. The bottom of both hulls were completely worn all the way through. They honestly looked like they had been dragged on concrete for a couple of miles. I ground the gelcoat off about 7' along the bottom in the middle of the hulls and about 4" up each side and layed up 3 peaces of 3/4 ounce mat along with one really heavy layer of woven. Then used polyester filler (bondo) to smooth them out and finally re-gelcoated. The hulls are no doubt a little heavier then original but they are certainly structurally sound. The transome area shown above in my opinion would be the easiest to fix with a heavy glass layup... mybe 1/4 to 3/8 thick.
On a different note, I have a new project boat - h18 that has severly delaminated hulls. I'm considering some different methods of fixing this and plan to start a thread to track my adventure with this. Being that this is such a common problem with the old hobies, maybe we can all learn a few things. Then again, i might just cut the hulls up and cart em out to the curb for pickup. I'll let you all know what I decide if anyones interested.
Regards, ~john -
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...a followup on my commments about fixing the transom....the first time i ever pulled the gudgions off a hobie, i thought the 1/4 inch stainless machine screws had been added by a previous owner as a quick fix. To my surprise, I found later that they were OEM. I thought this a poor design since the screws were just threaded directly into the transom, probably along with some marine 5200 caulk for added strength. The only sense I could make of that was maybe the design was to allow the gungions to seperate from the transom during a hard hit to the rudder but that doesn't make much sense either. Anyway, my point is, If i ever had to repair a transom or fix the screw holes because they got stripped out, I would put a 4 inch inspection cover in the deck so I could put stainless washers and nuts on the inside end of the machine screws.
~john -
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