I just bought a beautiful 1979 hobie 16, its in amzazing shape, except one soft spot a few inches in front of the tramp, there is a port someone put in right where the soft spot is, does anyone know the best way to fix this? Thanks.

GitRot will do the job.

http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/sto...hallpartial/0/0

Yep. Git Rot!

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

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Hulls - Soft or Delaminated hulls on older boats

Soft hulls are caused by the foam and fiberglass layers becoming seperated or delaminated. This can be caused by heat, repeated compression (walking on) or other factors related to materials and age. This is normally correctable. A soft area is a structural breakdown and should be corrected before sailing the boat. Soft areas in decks near or ahead of the forward cross bar can cause complete failure of the bow and must be repaired before sailing the boat.

If your Hobie has soft or "delaminated" hulls or deck areas, take a look at the following link:

http://www.hobiecat.com/support/tech/delam.html



I did a search on Google to find information on the material that is excellent for this kind of repair "Git Rot" Flexible penetrating epoxy:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Git+Rot

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Thank you!

Thanks for this!!!!

I have the exact problem in the exact spot. Now I know it is a problem I should worry about and more importantly I now have the solution.

This is awesome!

The only thing better is not having the problem in the first place.

Mine is a 1975 H16.

Not interested in racing. Just having fun and teach my kids to sail. I only just bought her last fall for a wopping $350 with trailer. Now a couple hundred more dollars of parts and trailer re-build and a buch of elbow grease I think I almost haver her ready.

Except now I have to fix that soft spot. Sure hope my local West Marine store has this stuff in stock!

One more thing. HOw much of this stuff to buy? In ounces.

Let's say that the area is 8" by 18". Is 4 oz enough? 8 oz? HOw thick is the delamination gap usually so that I can get a sense of volume?

Aay help will be appreciated.

Go to http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/sto...hallpartial/0/0

I had to repair both my hulls over a two year period. Wouldn't you know, as soon as I repaired one hull, the next year the other delaminates! Luckily, I had bought a quart of marine epoxy. It was enought for two jobs. So, with that experience, I would say a two foot long delamination will take about a pint of epoxy. Buy more than you need. It is better to have too much, than not to have enough to finish your job.

Another set of silly questions.

How big of holes do you have to drill? Is 3/32" enough or do you need to go to 1/8"?

Does this stuff come with the necessary applicator bottle & spout? It is an epoxy so I assume you must mix the 2 parts. And once you do this the excess is junk. So do I have to buy a separate bottle to mix it and squirt it in and then discard this other bottle when done?

A syringe perhaps. That would probably give you the cleanest/least messy way to inject it in. Probably want a #40 or larger needle for livestock. Try a vets office, at the very least they could point you in the right direction on where to get one.

I used a 40 cc syringe. I bought it from Fleet Farm, in Hudson, WI. Its a department-like store that also sells agriculture/animal supplies to farmers. You have to buy the (unneeded)needles seperately, so that wasn't a problem. Buy the syringe first, then drill a hole that creates a tight fit for the syringe tip. Too loose a hole and you won't get enough pressure to force the epoxy. But you don't want it so small it takes forever. It will be apparent what size drill to use.

I used West System syringes on my hobie soft spot. They are made of plastic and have a long tapered nozzles. You can cut the nozzle back to fit the size of hole you drill. Plus the cured epoxy usually pops out of the syringe, making them reusable. West Marine has them.

you could also go to Fleet Farm and look in the livestock section for syringes

Can someone please tell me if a 1975 Hobie 16 has a foam core or a balsa core?

What is the primary reason for this delamination? Is it balsa rot, or simply the result of sun and heat over years of age finally just giving up the bond? I realize the 1970's fiberglass technology was in its early stages.

I discovered that my delamination is large. It is about 2/3 the length between the front pylon to the tip. The total length is more than 3 feet!

I drilled several holes through and along the centerline in about the center of the delamination the core has settled fairly low. Can or should I attempt to pull up this core? I thought I might be able to do this as I mistakenly drilled all the way through (Opps!) in a few places. I thought I might be able to tie say some strong fish line around the center of a tooth pick or other small diameter dowl. If I push this all the way through I hypothesized that the toothpick would dangle and when pulling on the fish line it would cross the hole and allow some uplift. If I did this and put say 2 or 3 of these in a couple of places and held the tension, I could lift up the bottom layer. Thus when comencing with the repair of injecting the epoxy, it would require much less epoxy which I believe would also result in a stonger more long lasting repair. After the repair I could just cut the fish line and sand off.

What's the consensus of opinions on this?

Final question. After I do this repair, what kind of life will this boat have? What I'm really asking, due to the extent of this delamination and the boats age, should I just sell the boat next year as it's on its last legs, or will this repair last me say 5 or 6 years of family day sailing (no racing)?

Hobies have never had a balsa core.

Your hull is dead. It just doesn't know it yet.

By drilling through the bottom layer of glass, you made the repair that much more difficult. Until you plug those holes, any epoxy injected will run through to the hull interior.

You need to put a port in to plug the holes from the inside.

This topic has been convered extensively in the Hobie Community Forums - here.

I just did this to my boat. Make sure you buy more than enough "git rot" I had an area roughly 18 inches by 10 inches and I used up an entire pint almost, the soft area will soak it up. first thing to do is tape off the entire soft area, find tape that sticks well to the top of the hull, i had difficulty with blue painting tape, but it could just be my hull. Draw out the area that is soft, easiest by knocking on it and listening. drill small holes on the inside of the mark (breather holes) maybe 1/16th and drill through the first layer of fiberglass and then through the foam until you touch the second layer, don't press hard and you wont go through the second layer, let the drill do the work don't press down, don't go through the second layer or you will be screwed. You don't need to drill a lot of holes, I drilled probaly 6-8 holes for my area, and it seemed to work. When that is done drill another hole for the tip of the "git rot bottle" It only comes with pint size and bigger, not the small 4 oz size. Drill this hole on the higest part(center) of the topside, this allows gravity to do its job and spread the epoxy. No matter if your spot is on the side of the top side, still drill the hole as high as possible. The size of the hole will vary because the user needs to cut the tip of the bottle. I drilled a hole in a piece of plastic to make sure I had a really good fit, and I ended up using an 1/8 inch hole. You need a good tight fit so get rot doesn't come spewing back out the hole. Remember you are drilling all of these holes only through first layer of glass and foam, and there should be tape where you are drilling, to keep your topside clean. Mix the "git rot" in the bottle and shake it for 1 minute then squeeze it in there, it says you only have 20 seconds, but i did it in the evening when it is a bit cooler and it lasted a bit longer than that. Do it quick, but keep a close eye on your breather holes, soon as it comes out have many pieces of small tape ready so you can cover the holes. make sure you leave the tape on the holes for a while, if you take it off and the git rot hasn't cured it will come out the breater holes. It can be a pain in the butt to take it off later, but it will be done right, and you know you can get tape glue off with some elbow grease, git rot is a bit tougher to get off the top of the hull. after this get some gel coat patching material fill in all of your holes, and go sailing. good luck. hope this helps.

Could somebody please tell me what is the life of the repair of the soft spot.

Is it only good for a couple of years or is this a longer term fix?

i have this problem too, i'm terrified to drill into the top of the hull! How deep should these holes be? And what do i fill the holes with??? i have an early 80's H16 with yellow hulls. It's been sitting outside unprotected for at least 10 years. I rescued it from my dad. I'm very excited to learn to sail!!

Be very careful. I used a 1/8" drill bit. But I may have to enlargen since the large cyringe I got (2 oz capacity)to inject the epoxy has a bit larger nub of a nozzel on it than 1/8". I want to get a good tight seal so I can inject with some reasonable amount of pressure to ensure complete wetting of the delaminated area.

How deep. Well mine is a 1975 and it too sat out I think for its entire life. My oft spot area was large. Anyhow. The top skin in very thin. I'd say only like 1/16 of an inch. And the foam core is only about a 1/4". Use VERY little pressure when going through the top skin. As once you hit the foam there is no resistance and you'll go through the foam lickity split and through the bottom skin. The bottom skin is very very thin from what I could tell, like one or tow layers of fiberglass cloth. Trust me on this. I drilled straight through in several places. And now I have to come up with a fix.

If I were to do this again, I would put some sort of tape around the drill bit or may even think of buying or cutting a drill bit to make it very short. Such that only about 1/8" or so of the bit was available to cut or left sticking out from the drill chuck. Or develop some other "stopping" mechenism to prevent drill through.

As far as a fix for the holes I drilled all the way through. I'm thinking that I will get a wood dowel and coat it in epoxy resin. And stick it in the hole. I will shove it so that it continues through the hole and I will keep pushing it so that the top of the dowel is below the top skin at about the same level as the foam or possible a bit lower. I will then put a couple of drops of epoxy over the top of the dowel to seal it off. It will let it cure and then test to see that it is sealed. When this is done, I will then proceed with doing the rest of the repair as stated or shown above.

At the recommendation of my local Hobie Cat dealer from a person who does fiberglass repair for his living. He recommended to use West Systems epoxy and drill holes on a 1.5x 1.5 inch grid pattern. This is because the west systems eoxy is thiicker and does not flow as well as "Git Rot". But he also said it is a lot stronger. He believed that Git rot is only good for a couple of years before it will give up and delaminate again. The West Systems epoxy stated that you can thin down and make it more flowable but you would also decrease the strength of the resulting resin by the same amount. So if you thinned it 50% it would only have 50% of the strength. So the very think Git Rot must not have anywhere near the strength of the West Systems epoxy. I am also a pilot and am into Homebuilding airplane movement. I know that West Systems Epoxy is also used to build airplanes so I think I'' put my trust in this epoxy over the Git Rot. But that decision is a personal one and other may not agree.

If I had a smaller area of delamination say 6 to 8" diameter, I would probably have used the Git Rot. But my area is appoximately 2 to 3 FEET long and probably 5" wide. And the foam core has subsided a little in the center. So I felt I needed the strongest epoxy I could get to bridge this and secure the area. But I do have a lot of holes and it will not look good. But then again my 1975 extremely faded orange hulls don't look to good to start with. But I'm not into racing and will not go out in strong winds and only paid $350 for the boat to begin with.

This just shows you get what you pay for!

I too am intimidated. But right now with the situation I have is that the boat is worthless and useless without the repair. And if I pay a fiberglass person marina rates I would have several times more into it than it is worth. So I have little choice.

I may do the repair this weekend. But epoxy set up faster with hotter temperatures. And with my large area, I want to have decent working time to ensure that I have fully wetted area. This weekend is supposed to be lik 90 degrees. So I may wait to see if I can get cooler weather or at least time it so that I do it early in the morning when it is cooler.

I'll let you know how this goes.

Don't drill the holes with a power drill!

Get a hand drill and then it is easy to be careful. After you break through the first layer, don't push down. Let the weight of the hand drill push through the foam.