Help - Mirage Adventure Leak Repair

Hello! I have a 2005 Mirage Adventure Fish 16' kayak that I absolutely love and it is in great condition (it's Orange!)

I've been having increasing amounts of water inside the hull - typically after an hour or two in mild chop I am getting 1-2 gallons leaking in. I've been going nuts trying to hunt down the source of the leak. I've replaced seals, removed and siliconed hatches back to the deck, did the rudder lines over, everything. Checked all the usual suspects, scupper holes, seat drain holes, nothing apparent to me.

Well today I used a hose and filled the kayak up with water. I discovered there is a tiny crack where the drive unit drops in, where the very front edge of it rests on the lip of the hull. It's probably only a 1/2" long and wasn't even visible to the naked eye, but I imagine when pedaling it is flexing and must be the source of the leak.

How do I repair this? Plastic welding? Hit it with a torch lightly and melt it back together? Melt and add more HDPE over top of it?

Thanks!!

Kevin

Hi Kevin,
I have an identical problem with my 2010 Outback that I bought 2nd hand and absolutely love. My leak was slowly worsening and after searching everywhere for the source decided to put water inside the hull with a hose and to my horror had water flowing out from under the drive mechanisms.
After removing discovered fine cracks both sides.
Is anyone aware if a repair is available for this problem?
Mine is at the two brass locking bolt points and I imagine this would be where considerable pressure is applied when peddling. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

This is a common problem and there are a multitude of past posts with solutions and several you tube videos showing how to repair the leak.
Here is a link to West Coast Sailing that has the Hobie hull repair kit in stock.
https://westcoastsailing.net/hobie-kaya ... 8QQAvD_BwE

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Dr.SteelheadCatcher
Warrenton, OR

I have made several successful plastic-weld repairs on Hobie rotomolded kayaks. Here's a prior post of mine with steps and details.

https://www.hobie.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=69923

Peter

Thanks for the replies, I had studied several you tube videos and have now ordered the Hobie plastic welder to attempt the repairs. The posts I'd found showed repair welding but not in the area where my cracks are located.

Agreed thanks for the replies as well - I ordered a plastic welding kit that has orange sticks to match my kayak since the Hobie one does not. I'll play with that and see if it gets the job done. Wondering if it may require plastic welding plus reinforcement with Loctite AA3035 and additional HDPE material given the area is under a lot of stress.

As mentioned it's a very old Mirage Adventure, with Turbo fins, and I am a pretty powerful cyclist. I can sustain 5-6 mph with this setup for extended periods. Even have clip-in shoes!

Kevin 624, You animal you

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Dr.SteelheadCatcher
Warrenton, OR

I've been thinking about clip in shoes for my kayaks, can you share what kind of setup you have?

SPD?, did you find stainless cleats/pedals, what kind of shoes?

With regards to the question about the clip-in pedals:

- Shimano SPD cycling sandals
- Cheap SPD double-sided road pedals from Amazon, flat on one side so you can still use sneakers, clip-on on other side. I figure if they rust out in a few years from saltwater I'll just replace for $25. I hose them off after each use and spray with WD40 and they are holding up OK.
- Pedal axle extensions like https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B4W ... UTF8&psc=1

I had an old set of Mirage Drive pedal arms. Removed the existing pedal axles carefully. Drilled out the holes neatly a bit. The hole needs to be drilled to just the right diameter to accept the pedal threads. Then used a bench-mounted vise to press and carefully thread the pedal extensions into the Mirage arms. This took some finesse and patience. The pedal extensions are much harder metal than the aluminum arms and so they will cut threads if you are careful, applying significant pressure with a vise and slowly turning with a pedal wrench. Then thread the clip=in pedals into the extensions. The width between the pedals is perfect, very close to a bicycle.

I have hundreds of miles on this setup and no signs of failure, it seems rock-solid. Makes for a much more pleasant pedaling experience. I think there is a huge market here for Hobie to make clip-in pedal arms but I bet they don't because of liability if someone rolled a kayak while clipped-in.

--Kevin

Kevin, No doubt there is some truth in liability for Hobie if someone was unable to release their foot off a pedals(s) and drown.

I for one, mostly down rigged fishing for big German Brown trout who tended to be in the 25' to 60' depths, so trolling at 1.5 mph to 1.9 mph is the ideal speed.

Since the original Hobie strap set up was good for most users, I found it took extra effort to keep my feet on the pedals for several hours and then, Roadrunner posted a "Heel strap" idea he had......I copied his idea and used a 1" wide NRS brand nylon tie down strap instead of a rubber strap Roadrunner used.
The NRS strap worked great and made for more enjoyable pedaling/trolling.

If anyone is interested in heel straps, just search for it in Hobie's search box above and you will find lots of information/details.

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Dr.SteelheadCatcher
Warrenton, OR

Most every repair I have seen in that area hasn’t ended well.
Truthfully the crack isn’t the problem, it’s the water leakage into the hull.
We owned quite a few Hobies, and that was a pretty common problem long ago.
As I’m sure you are aware nothing sticks to polyethylene.
If you can reach in around the mirage drive inside the hull, you should be able to stop the leak, ( does nothing about the crack).
Get some besttest rubber cement thinner, ( Home depot). The active ingredient is heptane, ( which melts polyethylene)
Clean the whole area around the mirage drive at least 4 inches away from the crack. Now take some heptane soaked rags and cover over the area you want to work, this will soften the polyethylene surface.
Pull out the rags and wipe dry.
Now get some krylon clear
Kote for plastics spray paint, ( home depot and lowes and walmart). Just spray the entire work area with that clear coat, it bonds to polyethylene pretty well, ( active ingreadient is heptane).
Once it dries get a couple tubes of ge clear silicone, and gob the whole area with 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick silicone. Doesn’t need to be pretty, ( it’s all inside the hull.
It takes a few days to dry. The hull shouldn’t leak anymore, even if the crack gets worse.
Just use the boat until it’s demise eventually. Shouldn’t leak anymore.
Good luck
FE

Agree with what Bob (FE) said apart from “nothing sticks to polyethylene”, which, while generally true, does have an exception.
If you read through this post
https://www.hobie.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=60698 about sticking skegs on you’ll see that if you ‘flame’ the PE surface first then it is possible to stick things to PE. The skegs I stuck to the bottom of my Adventure hull 7 years ago remain rock solid.
https://www.hobie.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=60698
You’d need to read through that post carefully to find out just how to use the gas torch but it could be worth trying VHB tape for a hull crack repair.
Even using something like this ultra thin stainless sheet with a VHB backing tape over the crack.
https://wearandtearpads.com/
It should work if you can get enough surface area and you prep carefully.

Stringy
Those are great solutions, I had forgotten about flaming. Actually we use vbh tape to hold the solar panels down on our motorhome, it is really good stuff.
FE

Good to hear from you Bob, it’s been quite a while! Sadly this forum isn’t what it was way back when we were regularly posting. I know you got rid of your TI, as did I, but I still have an Adventure and an Oasis, which is why I occasionally drop by here.
I upgraded to a 20’ fibreglass trailer sailer and have been using the VHB tape in place of hole drilling/screw fixing for so many things on the boat. We tow the Oasis behind our TS and I added the skegs to the Oasis as well, to stop it fishtailing all over the place. That was over 4 years ago. They have been towed through some quite rough waters over hundreds of kilometres and they have shown no sign of lifting.
It truly is remarkable stuff!

(PS for the moderator - not sure why this topic is in the Outback section as it has nothing to do with Outback’s ???
It should probably be moved to the open kayak section?)

I've read in a number of posts and online forums that the Loctite AA3035 bonds well with the Hobie HDPE material... my plan of attack here was going to be to drill and weld the crack and then add additional material around the cracked area by welding more plastic and/or using the Loctite AA3035. I was going to use donor material from a sacrificial Home Depot orange plastic bucket, which is practically the same color orange and also HDPE. I used it to seal a pinhole by the rudder previously and it worked fine.

Here's a picture of the crack:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ihE3Nb ... sp=sharing

Also it seems crazy I'm getting 1-2 gallons of water through this tiny crack but I cannot find any others. Thoughts?? I filled the boat up with water above the waterline and this was the only place that showed any signs of a leak, and no other cracks apparent on thorough visual inspection.

I've got so much time into this boat at this point but it seems like such a waste to let it go, it is in great condition otherwise and they don't make solo 16 footers like this anymore!

Appreciate the input from everyone!