18SX 1/4" Crack At Inside of Outer Lip At Rear Crossbar Slug

This crack goes mostly forward of the port pontoon's rear crossbar slug ~ 7" and is ~ 1/4" deep at its worst. It may be the result of an overstressed SX wing...but the starboard side shows no crack at the rear crossbar slug.

We disassembled the crossbar and used marine silicone sealant to fill it for a temporary repair in June and hoped it would last the summer. It lasted a month ...and we resealed the crack forward of the slug in early July and it's last two weeks.

Is there a better temporary repair?...we don't want to disassemble it until fall. We don't want to cut a porthole at the rear of the pontoon...Given that...What is the best "more permanent" repair?

Has anyone else experienced a significant crack at the rear crossbar on an SX?

Thanks.

I've had these cracks show up at the front X-bar anchors on my 1985 boat (and less extensive at the rear). These are highly loaded joints, and considering that the fiberglass is in the 1/8" to 1/4" thick range in this area, I'm sorry to tell you that a little "dab" of silicone isn't gonna cut it. If you want to do the repair right, you need to repair and reinforce the broken glass fibers.

If I were you, I'd put a porthole in the deck behind the rear crossbar (the porthole is nice to have anyway because it lets you really dry out the hull). Then install the upgraded stainless steel anchor plates at the rear crossbar (these are the same plates that thru-bolt into the hull and are used on the shrouds and front X-bar). This is a pretty easy install, and would likely get you through the season. Then in the fall, go back inside the hull and reinforce the area with glass to make the hull stronger than original. (You would be best to do the glassing ASAP, but if you really have to wait, at the very least, you should install the upgraded anchor plates.)

sm

A temp repair is not a good idea. You can fail the hull completely. Cracks in the forward xbar anchor area were known to end up as catastrophic bow failure. You need some substantial glass work inside the hull to connect the deck and sidewall again.

_________________
Matt Miller
Former - Director of Parts and Accessory Sales
Warranty and Technical Support
Hobie Cat USA
(Retired 11/7/2022)

The good news is that the crack as at the rear xbar...and not the bow. The SX is a 1999...does that mean the upgraded stainless anchor plate is not the single bolt slug??? But the plate is anchored with rivets???

Are there instructions in installing ports at the read??
Thaks.

John,
I did a repair to a larger crack than you describe. It held for quite awhile but eventually the brackets had to be installed.

Here's what I did: flipped the boat upside down, mixed resin and chopped glass, poured resin mix into lip, opened crack as much as possible manually and worked the resin mix into the crack, compressed the crack back together, feathered out the extra resin mix and let cure. It helped to spread the resin mix evenly across the crack so fibers crossed the crack at many angles giving some strength.

This is not a proper repair and did create some additional work when the brackets were finally installed, it did keep me in the water for the remainder of 1 season and most of another.

Good luck with an easy repair to get you through

I'm wondering if I can do some prevention on an extra set of hulls that I have to replace the ones that just blew out in this area. I believe the hulls are from '81 or '82. I will be using sx wings. What are the "upgraded anchors" I'm hearing about?

Thanks for the help!

Your SX will have the brackets at the shrouds and at the front x-bar I believe. Installing them in the rear requires a port or some access hole to the beam seat area. The hulls you describe as replacement will not have these support brackets but you can transfer from the bad SX hulls. There are some great articles on this site about reinforcing the hulls in the front but the rear is more difficult.

I just did this repair to my anchorpin plates and front x-bar .The rear is something I havent tackled yet.I can say that the plates spread the load substantially more than the stock anchors.Aside from having to one-handed hang and roll out the glass, this was a fairly easy deal.Do yourself a favor and buy good bi-directional fabric and good west sys epoxy or equivalent.Use a glass roller and you should have as good a result as I did.My hulls feel smoother and stronger than the factory glass by a longshot.
Good Luck!!
Shawn
82 h18 #8211
Div.3