No Foam in One Hull

There appears to be little/no foam in the left hull of my 1974 H16 and a few soft spots in the right. What's the latest wisdom on re-foaming? I'm already overspent on this hobby. Is it safe to sail as is?

I have a similar problem with my 76, the foam is saturated with water and needs removed this winter. After removing the foam I was just going to go out and buy some water noodles to put in. You just need enough to keep the boat afloat if the hull fills with water and water noodles are very bouyant, cheap and easy to replace. As far as sailing without the foam, it just depends on where you sail and how much your hulls leak.

Thanks. I looked up "water noodles" on google and they appear to be these big long sticks that won't fit through the drain hole. Do I cut a hole in the hull and, if so, where is the best place for it? Right now I have no known leaks in my hulls. My sailing is on relatively calm lakes.

What brought you to the conclusion that there is no foam in the hull? I am not aware of any Hobie that was built without it and the only way I know of to get it out is to cut a hatch hole in front of the tramp. Even with the hatch it is still not an easy task. It could be you do have foam in the hull but are in the same situation as me and it is saturated with water.

If you have no leaks in the hull the only other concern would be getting a hole in the hull from a collision with a boat, rock, pier... then there is the possibility the boat would sink. I doubt it would go down so fast you could not get to shore unless it was major damage. I would keep sailing and work on it this winter. I am in about the same place as you since I have serious doubts my foam would keep the boat up if the hulls filled with water but I still sail a couple times a week. With everything there is some risk.

Since I can't see well inside I can't say for certain that there is "no" foam in that hull but it's soft all over and the day I tried sailing without the drain plugs in (I know, bad idea) that hull went way under and the amount of water that drained out was at least half the hull volume. The right hull drained at least 20 gallon but finished long before the left. When I sail with the drain plugs in I get essentially no water out. Also, I did a low-pressure air test and the only leaks were tiny ones around the pylons which I resealed with RTV. As for why there is so little foam inside I don't know but the previous owner sailed almost exclusively in the ocean then left it outside for three years before giving it to me.

I'll leave it to people who've got more complete information, but for now, I'm pretty sure that the flotation foam does not even come close to half the hull volume.

One hull probably filled faster than the other because of any of a hundred reasons - most likely the plug was partially pushed into the dryer hull by the inrush of water, while not on the other.

Since you generally have a dry boat, just leave the plugs out while you store it to finish drying it out.

Now as for the hull being soft all over, that is probably a different issue - delamination. It's a well documented problem in this forum. for starters, look here

http://www.hobiecat.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=1156