Hobie Cat Forums

My H16 is not even a year old yet and I was really surprised to see the wear on the hull bottoms yesterday when crawling under the boat (see pic). I've already worn through the gelcoat and into the fiberglass. At what point does one consider a bottom job? how thick is the fiberglass on the hull bottoms? Should I consider having the gelcoat restored over the winter? Thanks.

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Stayin' Thirsty...
2011 Hobie 16SE
Atlanta, GA

Holy Crap............ You forget to use your trailer to drag boat home?

jejejejeje LOL, that`s a good one !!! I can imagine how funny it must look at 65mph on the Highway and smoke coming from the hulls !!!!!!

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Every second that passes cannot be recovered, so make good use of every one of them that you have left.

You can't drag the boat across sand and not expect it to wear down the bottom.

The gel coat is only about 1/16" to 1/8" thick. The bottom of the hull is fairly thick - about 1/4". You do not need a bottom job - yet.

If you want to spray a bit of gel this winter, that would get you by another couple of years (at the current abuse rate).

Mbounds, you got that right. You go across sand....you wear bottom of hulls...!!!! Living on the NC coast, we have lots of sand. Small price to pay for some awesome sailing.

Motivated, I just completed a bottom job on my boat. There were places on the bottoms of my hulls that were close to letting in water....yikes. I used glass-impregnated bondo to reform the hull shape in these areas, sanded it down with increasing grits of paper, and then painted the entire bottom from bow to stern. Realize that portions of the paint will be lost on the very first beach landing, but it is what it is. Hoping that this fix will give me a couple years anyway. The learning curve will be smaller the next time around. Good luck

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KU
'79 H16
#64048
#58757