Cracked or not? Needs repairing?

Hi friends,

My Hobie Cat 14 has something that looks like a crack in its hull but I am not sure whether the boat is really broken. It is located on the vertical surface of the hull, which looks toward the other hull, and it's placed about in the middle between the pilons. The crack looks line a line crossing entirely the surface from the deck attachment to the bottom.

Gelcoat over the suspicion line appears as it were an old drop of paint.

I have inspections port, which are located far from the problem, but I could see that the interior appears healthy.

I have sanded the gelcoat: the fabric into the transparent resin appears healty and the toppest part of the resin is opaque on what I suspected is a crack.

The unsanded gelcoat doesn't seem to have any crack as if the problem occured during building the boat.

I have also X-rayed with a fluorescent lamp and along the crack it appear a dark line when illuminated from the inside.

Photos are available on my live.com space at this URL: http://fabiolav.spaces.live.com/photos

In the one that took the interior the tape indicates where the problem is, you have to focus on the area just one or two inches after it.

Questions are:
1. Is this a crack or just a defective process in the production of the boat?
2.What could have caused it?
3. Does it make sense to cut a small (e.g. 1/2") circular sample using a hole saw for better inspection?
4. Does it make sense to repair it in any way? Or can I just repaint the sanded portion and the boat is still robust as it should be?
5. Any other suggestion or comment is welcome.

Note 1. I can't place any other inspection port because this hull has already two (one being about 2 feet far from this problem).
Note 2. Boat was built in Europe in 1983.

Thanks a lot,
Fabio

Great, complete photos. Has the boat been repaired in this area before?
It looks like there is a ghost of the "crack" that extends out from the sanded area. It makes me think its just a pressure ding. In which case just fill it with gel, fair,polish and call it good.
When you sanded the fibers did the glass turn white and flake off at all?
When doing a repair it is important to get all of the cracked glass removed and replaced otherwise the gel has no solid substrate and will crack again. It's hard to tell without putting a DA to it myself, but from the pix it looks like a pressure ding. I wouldn't do a "core sample" as it seems minor, but again it's hard to tell without seeing it for myself.

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Hi,

Thanks for your interest in this question.

As far as I know the interested area doesn't seem to have ever been repaired, as you can guess from this answer I am not the first owner so I can't be sure but there are no clues to think so.

You are right, the crack or whatever it is extends almost for the entire height of the hull, I sanded a small area to see what there was under the gelcoat but the problem is much longer that the sanded area. Xraying it is clear about this (I mean looking at it directly, not on the photos, which by the way was the most difficult to take because of very low light coming out from the hull).

When I sanded the area, the crossing line that you see in many photos isn't completely white, it's just clearer than the fiberglass and opaque and it shows a large number of micro-fractures about 1/16" long, that cross with each other, especially at surface but nothing flakes off.

I understand that it's hard to judge without being here but your answer is still very useful because it is addressing me in the right direction.

I have also noticed just today that there is another "ghost" on its left and it is barely visible in the pic I called Xrayed (#8). Since they are exactly parallel to each other the damage could have been caused by some rock or iron (e.g. cartopping) that moved from top to bottom of the hull. The previous owner might have then repainted finely the damaged area.

Thanks,
Fabio

Note/correction: emoticon above was actually "(# eight)".

Thanks,
Fabio