Restoring the hulls of a '76 H16

I recently pulled my fathers old Hobie Cat out from its crypt under the deck, where it had lain forgotten since its last use nearly 6 years ago. Upon cleaning the old hulls with a bit of Dawn, I was dismayed to find small, dime sized blisters down nearly two thirds of each hull, and several hairline cracks on the top of each hull as well. In addition, the bottom of each hull is fairly worn from (I expect) being run repeatedly across the sand with out some sort of protection. There is also a small chip missing from the front of one hull , and the foam blocks in each hull appear to be almost totally deteriorated as well. But I can only peer through the drain plug holes, and so I can only see but so much.

From what I can see, there are no major defects (i.e. gaping holes), just a number of much smaller ones. In response to this, I have decided to go about putting a new layer of fiberglass over each hull, and then applying a new gelcoat.

Do do this, I believe I have to

1) clean the hulls with a scrub and a bit of soap

2) sand them lightly all over, removing the blisters.

3) apply the new layer of fiberglass, as per instructions on the resin can

4)apply the gelcoat

Now, I understand that there are several different forms of fiberglass available. From sheets to cloth. So what I need to know is...

1) Is re-working the fiberglass a plausible solution?
a) what form of fiberglass will be the lightest (weight wise)?
b) is the above method the correct process for what I'm trying to do?

2) Do the disintegrated foam blocks mean the boat is dead?


Any response at all would be helpful, as I am new to this. I'm pretty handy, and I have months to spend on this, so time is no object. As it is my father's old boat, I am quite intent on completing this project. I just need to know that I'm looking at this correctly.

Thank you.

Josh.

Josh,
I by no means am the most qualified to help you with this, but I think there are a few "commonly" answered questions that could do you some good.

First if your claim that the foam blocks seem to be deteriorated, I can only assume that you are speaking of the foam that is glassed over inside the deck that holds the pylons to the boat. Are the loose, or does the foam look messy. I cant speak for newer boats but my old '74 is a wreck inside, I guess Hobie figured no one would see them, they dont need to look good, so what might look like breakdown could just be a mess of fiberglass and foam. If they are actually broken down, you would be better off finding a newer boat, or if someone can chime in to help you fix that problem, to me that seems like too much trouble because you would need to access the insides of your hulls, which is at the least is an installation of a hull port near each pylon which could weaken the structural integrity of the hull??

As far as your idea with re glassing the entire boat, way too much effort for common problems. If you search the post you will find tons of blister repair stuff, which usually results in sanding the blister down, patching the resin with polyester resin (if you plan to gel-coat) and then paint/gel the fixed area. It has been advised many times in the board that painting the boat adds a lot of weight to the boat which can cause performance problems such as pitch poling. If you have to redo the hulls, I would recommend you patch what you need too, sand and gel coat (if you can handle the amount of work). Others have sanded, and used paint like interlux brightsides. If your boat is white, you shouldnt have much problems matching the gel for repairs. Rick Buchanan just wrote an article about re gel-coating the boat in the Hobie Hotline you can get it here:
https://www.hcanamembers.com/PayDues.aspx Pay to get a printed copy or...
http://www.hobiecat.com/hobieclass/ to get a .pdf

Adding another layer of glass will make the boat very heavy which you might end up regretting. Spot repairs of blisters on white hulls and small cracks in the gel-coat aren't a big deal, if you have colored hulls its going to be hard if not near impossible to match the color.

To me it sounds like your biggest problem is potentially the broken foam in the deck.

Luke[/url]

My hulls were lying flat on the ground since 1995 which apparently caused the blisters you are seeing. I had dozens of them. I opened them all up with a Dremel tool and sanding disk and very light pressure. Only two or three had moisture in them, the rest were dry. I filled them with Marine Tex, sanded them down and painted the entire hulls with polyurethane paint (West Marine Sea Gloss). Even though they were in pretty good shape, I also put a couple layers of 6 oz glass tape on the keels with epoxy (West Marine fast cure).