New 1973 H16 Owner... Hull Questions

I recently bought my first boat of any kind, a red 1973 H16. I have past experience sailing and maintaining a relative's 30ft single hull boat. This Hobie is in relatively good shape for its age, a soft spot on top of one of the pontoons, some faded paint, but mostly ready to go.

My question is about how to refurbish the hulls. While sanding and painting, I noticed what appears to be a blister, midships near the water line. It is about golf ball size in diameter, and raised about half a centimeter. In my past experience I would simply drill it, dry it, fill with epoxy, then sand and pant it. What is the process for a Hobie as they obviously don't have solid hulls?

Lastly, regarding the topsides, I have already read about how to fill soft spots, but regarding the surface itself, do you simply sand and paint it or do you sand and polish it? Also will sanding ruin the texture on the topside or does that even matter?

Thanks in advance for the help!

Hi,
I just got done stripping down my 1980 Hobie 16 and repainting it. I had some delamination on the top deck which I repaired by drilling air holes and a couple central holes and then injecting epoxy into the central holes until it came out of the air holes. West Marine sells empty caulk canisters which fill very easily with the epoxy and did a great job forcing the epoxy into the cavities.
After that was done, the epoxy that came out filled the texture surface. Additionally, after removing the previous paint job, there wasn't much of a textured surface left. I contemplated sanding down the entire deck to get rid of the raised area, but instead decided to use a product called Interdeck by Interlux This product is a polyurathane based paint with sand (or some other grit) mixed in. It leaves a nicely textured surface when dried. I first painted two coats of Brightsides polyurathane white over the entire deck. Then, I taped around the existing raised areas on each hull and brushed on two coats of Interdeck. It took less than one quart of white Brightsides and one quart of white Interdeck to do both hulls.
I am quite pleased with the results.
We are on our way to Florida for our inaugural voyage. I can't wait to show her off!
Here are some pics.

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Eric Weller
2006 F18 Capricorn
1980 H16
Keep the pointy side up!

Wow that came out great! Thanks so much for the clear description and awesome photos, I am definitely going to follow your advice. Good luck with the maiden voyage, hopefully I am not too far behind you!

Wow that looks beautiful. Very impressive!

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Hobie 16 sail # 9281