Bottom Job Bail Out...

My original plan was to redo the hulls on my hobie 16 over the winter. I was planning on putting on a layer of epoxy on each hull to take care of years of dragging the boat across the beach. I was then planning on priming and painting the hulls.

Well it's now mid-July, and I have a layer of epoxy on the hulls, but they still need a lot of work to sand them down, patch all the scratches etc. before I apply a couple of coats of paint.

At this point, I'm missing the prime sailing season here, and I care a lot less about cosmetic appearances. Does anyone see any issues with sanding the expoxy down until I have a good surface, and throwing the boat on the beach? I want to be sailing, not painting... I'll reschedule the rest of the work in the fall - at the end of sailing season...

I appreciate any comments!

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Ready about!

Ed

I have done 3 bottom jobs in the past year (2 H16's and 1 H14). I have used the West System epoxy with the fast hardener and the graphite filler ("to produce a low-friction exterior coating with increased scuff resistance and durability"). The graphite filler turns the epoxy jet black, and in my opinion eliminates the need to paint the epoxy.

If the bottoms are bad (require a few layers of glass and rebuilding of the original shape), I have used the hull template that Hobie provides to create a plastic scaper to run along the setting epoxy. You may need to add colloidal silica filler to increase the thickness of the mixture; this allows you to really rebuild the shape of the hulls.

Here is a link to the hull template:

http://www.hobiecat.com/support/images/ ... mplate.jpg

With an eletric sander and a little effort, you can remove old epoxy if need be and start again. In total (and after a bit of practice), it takes about 1.5-2 hours for us to do a bottom job...

Good luck

Jeffrey

My new (used) 1988 H18 was previously sailed off a beach in Michegan. The bottoms are smooth as silk, no cloth visible, however, there is no gelcoat. The boat sails dry.

We launch off cat trax, and store boats on old car tyres. Do I need to be concerned?

You make a bottom job sound so simple. The way I read the template is that I should temporarily build a shim on the underside of the lip so that I have a constant 20-something", and then I can run the plywood or plastic scraper along the bottoms. Do you scrape front to back? Centre to ends? How much weight does it add?

Would I be better off with a good epoxy paint? (Interlux etc.) I am a better painter than scraper!

Good winds

John Lunn CA
613-729-8681

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2015 H16, with spin,
SOLD 1989 Hobie SX18 Sail # 1947 "In Theory..."
'Only two things are infinite, the universe, and human stupidity. But I'm not sure about the former.'

The best way to see how much damage has been done is to create the wood (or plastic) pattern from from Hobie template. Make certain to use a large enough piece of plastic/wood so that it covers at least 2 inches of the hulls on each side. Run the plastic over the hull and look down the length of the hull. You will be able to see any low spots or loss of original shape.

If the fiberglass is not showing, I would not be overly concerned. Also, if you do not find any real loss of the original shape, you could tape off the long, narrow strip that has lost the gelcoat and simply apply 2 or 3 coats of the epoxy + fast hardener + graphite filler. Without the coloidal silica, it will be quite thin and brush on smoothly.

If we lived a lilttle closer, I would be more than willing to help...

Jeffrey