Steve, My boat had 7'' cracks under the lip that I could slide my pocket knife about 3 inches into from the outside, I carefully cleaned the gelcoat off the inside of the lip and cleaned up the inside(there are some posts about grinding out the glue on the redline boats) and applied polyester resin and fiberglass to the inside with multiple layers inside, and a couple of layers outside. It can be done through the access hatch with care, and in my case the use of a cell phone video and sticking it up in there. I applied glass 5'' past the original crack location and have sailed the hell out of it with moderate success. I am considering applying more material to deal with cracking around the access hole.
If you have some fiberglass experience, this sort of work is at least a few hundred dollars worth of your time and money, and depending on how bad the crack actually is, may be worth more of a discount off the asking price. Keep in mind, wings in good condition are worth good money, so are nice colored hobie sails. When you say major failure... you just mean a crack? or distortion in the hull.
_________________ Tom Fleet 259, Central Coast CA H18 ('81) H18 ('85) H20 ('97) H18 ('78)
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