Rare, and awesome opportunity to get into a free boat has come up and I am heaading out tomorrow to pick it up barring any thing massivly wrong with it. How do I check the hulls for soft spots etc?

Push/press your fingers on them! A mushy deck will compress easily with finger loads. Can be repaired if not extensive (using thickened epoxy injected by syringe into small holes drilled in outer skin).

Try tapping along the decks/freeboard...a good well made hull will make a sharp tap sound, not a dull thud.

i wouldn't look a gift boat in the hulls...

But i would leave a crap cat out for trash!

A Gift can be much more work than its worth...

More important than soft decks/hulls on older T's...check for structural cracks radiating from the centerboard trunk opening at the deck. This is a highly stressed area of the hull and cracks do develop. Can be fixed with grinding out and layers of glass epoxy.

Also look for beam dimples where the beam bolts go through (sign that owner over torqued them). Problematic if this can be fixed without beam replacement. Stripped bolt threads in the hulls can be repaired eitehr with helicoil inserts or replacement of the aluminum block glassed inside the hull (difficult to reach but doable).

Thanks for the tips. I'll try to post some pics of it tomorrow when I get home!!

Well no tornado for me. The hulls were totally soaked, soft and rotting. Oh well I had to at least check it out. On with the isotope plan

Is the boat you looked at in the Raleigh area? I'm looking for an impossible project for when I'm layed off.

Bummer. That would have been an awesome.