Hi all,
I am new to this board - just bought a used 1971 16' last week. It is my second H16 (owned one 1980 to 1995) and as much fun to sail as I remembered!!! I've invested a little over $600 and a week's worth of TLC. I wanted to post my soft spot repairs as they seem to have worked well.
I didn't want to drill a bunch of holes in the decks (though I might end up doing that for softness under the tramp) so I installed 6" inspection ports and used that access to fiberglass support ribs under the softness. 3 on each side. I started by squeezing as much resin between the layers exposed by the 6" hole as I could get in and clamping. Once that set, I glassed the ribs 2 at a time. Go slow and mix about 7 batches of resin. It was a lot easier than trying to do it all with one or two mixes. I used 2 layers of mat between the pine ribs and the deck, supersaturated with resin, and held the ribs in place with a wedged support until dry. Then added rolled up blobs of mat to each end for added support. I added the ports last to avoid getting resin on them. It was relatively easy and the results are good so far.
For what it's worth, here are some pictures.....
