all of mine are busted out and i am in the process of wrapping them with fiberglass from the inside. one has broken from the bottom of the boat. is the best thing to do just to wrap them up and reinforce with more? you know, it is so hard to get in there, any suggestions?

Fill them in with concrete.

nice answer.



We don't want to sail as slow as you do though.

Assume you have added access ports, this is the only way to get inside to repair. Suggest you build up with glass cloth and resin, inside the boat, same as factory. Probably should have wings on as you do this to make sure they are lined up correctly. You can not add any material in the holes, and still get the wings on. We have repaired holes in the bottom of the wing sockets by adding glass and resin from the iside of the socket. Any excess resin can be removed by using sandpaper on a broom or similar wood handle. The wing sockets usally break from improper wing removal. You must keep them even on removal, can't just pull out one.



Caleb Tarleton H-17, 144 and 6185

Sorry to say I sold mine after that happened. You can buy plugs and leave the wings off....dont think it will ever be repaired to your satisfaction. That and the Pryde sails delaminating is the curse of the class.

I had the exact same problem on a 17 I am rebuiding. I cut acess ports between the front socket and the daggar board. Then I wrapped the socket from the inside with glass tape and epoxy. there is no easy way to do it, just reach in with your hand and smear it around. Then I used some thickened epoxy carefully in the socket to fill in any gaps and sanded it with a rotary sanding drum on a spade drill bit extensoin. It is messy and time consuming. Where the socket meets the bottom of the hull, I injected thichened epoxy under any loose spots and used 2" then 4" tape with thickened epoxy, all of this after a scrub brush and acetone on the area.



For the rear pocket, I am still wotking on it but the damage is less and it looks like I will be able to fix it from the outside of the boat by carefully sanding and building back up. It is like working on someones molars though.



If anyone has any other ideas on how to fix the sockets so they are usable with the wings, less siliconeing the wings in, it would be great to hear what you did.



Also, I need a used H17 daggar board and springs if someone has a usable one they would let go for less that a new one.

Sorry to hear you sold your H-17. The plugs are to protect the sockets from getting water in during winter storage, another cause of failure. In our fleet of H-17's in the North West, I have only seen one socket failure, other than minor leaks. Not bad for over 60 boats. As for the Pryde Sails, we had three out of nine H-17's in the NW Championship last weekend flying the orginal Pryde sail, including the winner. Pretty good for a sixteen year old sail.



Caleb Tarleton

I just made a similar repair on my Hobie 21, I contacted Hobie Europe about how they would do it and proceded in a similar fashion.



I chose to cut on the side of the hull since there should be some reinforcements in the deck I don’t want to touch, advice from Hobiecat Europe.



Meassure the length of the wing tube from the hole in the deck and to the end of the tube. This will tell you where to cut a hole in the hull. You have to cut the hole about 15 – 20 cm shorter down thew side of the hull than the messure you got from the tube, ensuring that you don’t cut in to the “shoe” that is fastened on the inside of the hull. The socket itself dosent hold a whole lot of strength but functions more as a guide for the wing tube to meet the mentioned “shoe” in the hull.



1) Drill a small hole in the hull, on the inwards side, and place a screw there.

2) Tie a small piece of line in the screw and tie a pencil to the other end of the line. Length of line 8 – 9 cm.

3) Draw a circle.

4) Drill a hole somewhere on the circle. Big enough for your electrical saw (don’t know the name of this tool in English) to fit in to.

5) Adjust the angle of the blade on the saw so your cut will be coned with a 40 degree angle inwards, hole bigger on the outside of the hull than the inside!

6) Cut out the cookie, (don’t cry, this works)

7) Now you should have a nice access to the broken tube.

8) Cut some bands out of a fiber glass mat about 30 com long and 5 cm wide, make plenty of these.

9) Grease up your wing tube and place it in the hull, this will ensure that you can build up the damaged tube without “gluing” it in place permanently.

10) Mix about ½ kg of polyester, not epoxy. Hobiecats are made of polyester. If in doubt give Hobie a call. I know for certain my h21 is polyester.

11) Dip the strands of glassfiber matts in the polyester and wrap it around the damaged tube and reinforce the “shoe” too. I made the socket about 0.5 cm thicker than the original. (wear gloves).

12) Wait 24 hours to be sure your repair is hardened and test your wing, jump on it or something.

13) Take a glassfiber batten and cut some pieces, about 10 cm long and epoxy (can be used for this part of the process) them to the inside of the hull in a fashion that some of the piece is sticking out form the circle and in towards the center of the circle, just a few cm. This will make placing the cookie much easier since you cant press the cookie in too far.

14) Cut another strand of fiberglass of the same length as the diameter of the circle and about 5 cm wide and place it around the edges of the circle, make holes in the mat for the small pieces of battens that works as a sort of “stop” for the cookie. Remove it from the hole again.

15) The next steps have to be well prepared because you have to do several steps before the resin dries up.

Mix some more polyester or thick epoxy and apply it to the edge of the hole in the hull, place the glassfiber strand you have prepared, don’t worrie about some of it is sticking out in the inside and out side of the hull. It has to be this wide to be able to control it from sliding around when you insert the cookie into the hull again.

16) Take a brush or a stick and soak the matt along the edges of the hole, soak the edges of the cookie.

17) Place the cookie in the hole and hold it there until it dried up. You have about 15 min to do all these steps, so you wont have to hold it for long : )

18) After the epoxy has dried for about 15 min you can let go of the cookie and take a razorblade, have 3 or 4 ready. And begin to carefully cut away the excess epoxy and matt.

19) Have some thinner and cloth ready to dry away excess epoxy too.

20) Sand the repair down and paint it if you like.

21) Make sure you have a nurse to hand you all the materials during the operation.



I hope my explanation of the operation is good enough to follow. People saying that this cant be fixed to you satisfaction don’t know what they are talking about.

My repair is strong and you cant feel it on the hull. It can be seen though since i havent painted it. Which I will do this winter but for now i like to keep an eye on it.



I sailed yesterday with a crew of three in the Northsea in about 13 – 15 meters per second and 3 to 4 meters waves. Wing and hull holds up perfectly. If it holds up with three grown guys in these conditions it wont break for on h17. The forces on your boat is much less than on the 21.



Btw 3 people can right the H21 without a righting pole, found out this yesterday too.



If you need further help with the operation drop me a mail.



Chris

drilling holes in the side of my hulls is not something that sits well psychologically



I would much prefer putting an inspection port in there, lucky for me, my boat came with them already there

If you can reach the repair through inspection ports, drilling a hole would be close to idiotic : )

Imagine how I felt with a can of wax in one hand and some "twist" in the other to make everything look beautifull, just to discover the problem. And then an hour later applying an electrical saw on the hull.



My initial idea was to install an inspecton port but was advised against it by Hobie.

Cutting in the hull is how they would solve it if the boat was brought to the factory and my result after following the instructions are close to perfect.



Chris

I have repaired the rear ones by putting a port towards the back of the hull. You then have to get the floatation block out of the way by cutting it into the plastic bag and then taking the pieces out of the plastic bag that encloses the styrofoam block. I cut the foam with a wire saw from a camping store. (You do have to put the pieces back in to be class legal) I then ground out the fiberglass cloth that holds the wing tube in place and replaced it with West Epoxy. Also, on my boat there was water in the pods that holds the wing tube. So I had to drill a small hole in the bottom of the boat to drain the water out and refill it.To be able to see what was going on I rented an underwater fish video camera and did the grinding with a dremel tool with a flex shaft. It turned out to be strong and water tight. If the surgeons can do things orthoscopically then so can we!