Hello all, I have a 2003 Hobie Fox, Sail No. 101. Polyester, foam core. Rock solid boat. I'm sanding down both hulls, doing repairs, and re-gel-coating both hulls.
She has been beached in the past several times, and moved on Cat-Trax without cradles once or twice. (Both not by me!)
The Cat Trax just some nice indentations in several spots on the bottom, which look fairly easy to fill.
The beaching, however, has left some more serious-looking grooves in the bottom, where the belly skin has been deformed in up to 1/4th of an inch in some places, and up to 2 feet long.
After sanding off the gel-coat, the damaged areas look roughly like this. The lighter colored streaks are the center of the rock grooves and appear to be damaged laminate. Forward is up.
This is the worst groove in the bottom, before any work. Forward is to the right. Note the semi-circle spider cracks all along the gel-coat. The band across the top is the gel-coat seam - I'm sanding that off.
Another view of the same crack, with light on it sideways to emphasize depth deformations. Foreward is up. Deepest part is at bottom of image, and has some visible fiberglass in the very bottom of the deepest part.
After sanding, note the lighter streak of damaged fiberglass in the middle of the groove, and the semi-circular cracking. Forward is down. I believe the darker area of fiberglass along the hull seam is the part that doesn't have foam core, and the lighter area farther away from the seam has the foam core.
Same groove, further aft. The wide horizontal area of unsanded gelcoat is one of the four or so Cat-Trax grooves. The deepest part of the rock groove is right next to it, showing the area cracked-through to the foam.
What does everyone recommend for repairing the rock grooves that have fiberglass damage? Part of me wants to completely remove all the damaged glass and replace it with new glass, but then I think about how solid the boat as a whole is, and wonder if it would be worth trying to do that, and if I should just fill the depressions with a bit of mat glass and lots of epoxy, maybe with a bit of adhesive filler mixed in, and call it good?
Also, the lower aft corner of the port daggerboard case leaks about a gallon an hour when sailing. Both trunks have a fair amount of gelcoat cracking around them. I want to do significant reinforcement to this whole area on both hulls, and am wondering the best way to do this. This boat sails in a very shallow lake, so I expect that it will hit things several times with the daggerboards down in the future, and want the hulls reinforced enough they aren't easily damaged by it. I want to reinforce from the inside of the hull, but I cannot get to this part of the boat through the access ports. The 2 or 3 inches along the centerline of the hull does not have the foam core, while the area on both sides does. I am planning on cutting an access hole through the hull to get to it, but I hesitate to do this without considerable planning. I'm beginning to wonder if it would be better to cut the access hole right in the middle of the keel/centerline, where there is no foam core, or up on the side of the hull nearby where there is foam core? And perhaps, most importantly, how should I patch the hole after I cut it?
Also, the transoms and cross-bar beds have some spider-cracking. I am going to sand the Gel-coat down, and would like to reinforce these areas. I plan to add a bit of extra woven glass over these areas, and then fair the hull, so any added thickness from the extra layers of glass are not really noticeable, and curves gently up from the smooth surface of the hull. Does anyone have advice on this?
Lastly, there is a giant foam block in each hull, between the back of the daggerboard case and the bulklead under the rear cross-bar. One of them is in a bag, one is not. Both are loose and can flop around. What's up with the bag on one block, and should they be loose?
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