flex in the overhang on deck

today I was looking at some spider cracks on my deck that have surfaced, and was just feeling around and pulled up on the over hang or (gunwale) of the starboard hull near the rear pylon and it was flexible (moved up or down), mabye 5 millimeters of flex when I pulled up. I know this is usually a pretty stiff part of the boat, should I fill the gunwale with epoxy to stiffen it up or am I ok with some flex?

I dont want to collapse my hull on the water.

Luke

Rail stiffness? The rear rail has less structural issues, but you should fix it. Not likely to be a major issue. Perhaps some layer of glass layed up under the lip.

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

thanks Matt, thats what I figured but wanted to check and be sure. The fore section of the rails are stiff, but I plan to lay some glass under to reenforce it.

Thanks,
Luke

I recently noticed the same thing on the bow rails of my boat. I can see cracks along the top that run parallel to the hull.

You are right this is an area of your boat that should be fairly solid (due to shape and thickness on laminat). Check if the seam between deck and hull is intact. Just an idea.


Patrick

I have a 1977 boat and spent a lot of time rebuilding and going over her. The areas you are referring to were, and still are, rock solid. I could not get ANY detectable flex to occur there, so I am a bit surprised to hear your description.

I will defer to Matt Miller if he has another reason for all this, but what you are describing sounds like it could only occur as the result of delamination. Now, it is very important to make a distinction here. I am NOT talking about the usual process of delamination seen in all the Hobie forums whereby the fiberglass separates from the interior foam core. But rather I am refering to separations WITHIN the fiberglass layers themselves. If this is the case, the evidence should be visible along the lip of the seam (ie. the 1 centimeter, flattened lip of the gunwwale - some refer to this as the glue seam). You may see some separation there. It might look a little like the broken edge of a soda cracker when snapped in half - or something similar. If this is the case, my approach would be to invert the boat so as to carefully/painstakingly get as much penetrating epoxy (like Gitrot or thinned out West System) in there all along that seam. I might use a small tool to carefully pry open the separations and inject the epoxy via syringe. Then, I would consider clamping it all against a small diameter wooden dowel that fits snugly into the underside of that lip. The more clamps you can fit to the area, the better.

Obviously, you can simply lay glass externally under the lip as suggested. But, if the type of delamination I described is present, you might want to try and address it directly - if possible. If you can get enough epoxy in there, that just might do it - neat, clean, and strong.


Dave