Hello !

I need your help. Some days ago, while trailering my Hobie 16, some debris in the road hit my port hull, and made a hole. You can see it in the attached pic. The hole is just in the keel, in the very centre between the two pilons, and its size is about one inch -2.5 cm aprox.

The matter is that it just cutted the fiberglass, so I worry about the structural integrity of the hull.

How I should repair it?
Open a hatch in the deck and place some fiberglass?
Only a filler, as the hull strength and rigidity should not be affected.

I thank for your help; in two days I will come back, as I can not connect before.

Marin
HC 16 104662

Not a structural problem there. Also a pretty simple area to fix. Something like this... Clean and trim the loose glass. Get a short stick of hardwood (maybe 4-6 inches long) that you can fit into the hole. Tie some twine to the middle of the stick. Get some strips of glass cloth and mat. Poke a hole and insert the twine to slide the cloth up against the stick. Wet out with resin. Insert in the hole and position into the keel with the stick on top of the glass and the string out the hole. Weight the string to hold the pieces tightly in the keel till the glass sets up. Cut off the line and build up the glass from the out side to fill in the hole. I would also grind away the gel around the area and finish with a few layers large than the hole to cap off.

There is a repair page showing this kind of thing on a Sunfish I saw recently...

Sunfish Repair with similar issue

Thanks Matt, I was just going to refer him to my Sunfish page as it seems very similar.

Thanks a lot Matt !

Your info is very valuable, and also comes form you working on the Hobie Cat Co. so I will not worry about the structural integrity. I feel much better now.

I will follow your instructions and repair it.

Marin.