I just got a 1981 Prindle 16 (see my post in Getting Started) and after reading all the posts here and elsewhere about soft spots and delamination I started freaking that maybe mine has some.
Some posts I have read even say that delamination is not an if but a when and that all old hobies and prindles will suffer from it eventually.
My cat is currently in my mother-in-laws backyard so I had a sleepless night last night worrying that my new boat is a wreck. But I stopped by and checked it today. I pushed and knocked on every surface of the decks and hulls and can find no softness, waviness or rattle anywhere.
So if delamination is inevitable then why has my boat, which has spent a lot of time outside uncovered, not suffered? Is there something different about how Australian made Prindles were constructed? Is it a humidity thing, is it just luck or is not as common as some make out?
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Andrew
1981 Prindle 16
Canberra, Australia
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How common is delamination in older catamarans?
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Posted: Oct 31, 2017 - 10:35 PM
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Posted: Oct 31, 2017 - 11:50 PM
The short response is be thankful and go sailing. Take as good of care of her as is reasonable and fix little things before they become big things.
Delamination can be caused by water left in hulls, heat or temp fluctuation in general, flexing caused by repeated walking on deck, water soaked foam core and a host other things. Sometimes certain year boats are known to have a bad batch of foam core or resin and may be more susceptible to delamination. None of it's a guarantee. If it does start to develop it is treatable -
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Posted: Nov 01, 2017 - 12:07 AM
Andrew,
I can't speak to older Hobies or Prindles specifically delaminating. I have a Nacra 5.2 that I have owned since 1976. The boat has always been stored outside uncovered. A little over a year ago now I did an extensive rebuild of the boat and nearly every bit was dismantled and inspected with the exception of the center part of the hulls that part was inspected with cameras. There were some minor problems with galvanic corrosion, but the hulls in my boat were fine. We reinforced some areas, but structurally the boat was good to go. By design the early Nacra's were considered to be soft because of the hull structure being light and flexible.
I don't think it is a given that a boat will delaminate with age. I would be more inclined to think that those problems come from impacts of one sort or another. Fiberglass in and of itself does not deteriorate, but it can be over stressed and for boats that are in the water a high percentage of the time another chemical problem called osmosis can occur, but that isn't normally a problem for a beach cat.
Delamination is a specific kind of a fiberglass problem. In an older boat simple structural problems occur and can be pretty easily repaired so just take some time and carefully inspect the interior and exterior of your boat. Your smart phone or any camera can get you a view of the inside of the hull where the exciting stuff happens.
Take some shots and start a photo album under technical and then you can share what you are seeing.
Here is my example: https://www.thebeachcats.…c3e9650ae9634f28a26d17d5
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dg
NACRA 5.2 #400
This End Up
Original owner since 1975
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Posted: Nov 01, 2017 - 12:41 AM
I ran into Sterling Santly, owner of Surfglas, a number of years ago in La Paz. We were on the beach & I commented how I felt a lot of the Hobies were delaminated. He responded that Prindles had the problem too. Said that both companies received some bad Clark foam. Pete -
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Posted: Nov 01, 2017 - 07:24 AM
Your 76 Nacra is a glass layup boat not foam sandwich so it will not have the delamination problems of the foam sandwich construction -
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Posted: Nov 01, 2017 - 12:01 PM
A lot of it comes down to how well the boat was built. In the “Hobie hay-day” they were cranking out ten’s of thousands of boats at a very high rate. Quality control suffered at times. A lot of people have reported dry areas in the laminate and other issues. These types of defects will certainly contribute to degredation of the hull. The way the boat is stored also plays a part in its longevity. Keep the inside of the hull as dry as possible during storage. Repeated flexing of the hull will also cause delamination. If you walk on the decks hard or if you capsize a lot and stand on the hull side wall a lot it will stress the hull.
It’s true that eventually all composite hulls will break down. But if your boat was built well and is well cared for, this will likely take a long, long time.
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Posted: Nov 01, 2017 - 01:17 PM
I should have added another serious cause of delamination comes from moisture in the core freezing. So a boat that has a damp core can and will delaminate when it suffers freezing. Moisture inside the hull can create extraordinarily high humidity and if the hull is sealed up will essentially pressurize that humidity and begin forcing it into the core. So storing the boat with dry hulls and the drain plugs pulled may go a long way to stopping delamination of a cored hull.
When I wrote my post I was thinking more in terms of the actual glass layer(s) separating and not about the separation of the layers of glass from the core. I should know better since I am just about finished up fixing a J30 with wet balsa core. This freezing core problem greatly affects balsa (or any kind of damp core) core boats in the colder climates to the extent that it can be the cause of retirement of the boat. This problem can be repaired, but it requires a fair bit of work.
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dg
NACRA 5.2 #400
This End Up
Original owner since 1975
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