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 Post subject: Wing hole leakage
PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2011 8:32 am 
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Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2009 4:00 pm
Posts: 42
Hello Gents, i have located a leaky wing hole in the port hull, the front one. i have searched for "wing hole repairs" with the search function but it didn't shed too much light for me. has anyone had to do a similar repair. the leak is sonewhere near the bottom of the hole as when we filled it with water it emptied virtually to the bottom. anyhelp would be great, it must be a fairly largish hole as the water vanished. i have the large inspection holes behind the centre plate housing so access from internally is going to be difficult.


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 Post subject: Re: Wing hole leakage
PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2011 2:44 pm 
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Joined: Sat May 02, 2009 5:22 am
Posts: 675
Location: Columbus, Indiana
I have had to repair my wing sockets too.
To repair the leak for the inside of the sleeve wasn't too difficult at all once I figure it out.
First clean out that sleeve as best as possible.I used acetone and some rags wired to an old narrow broom handle.
Than I made a barrel sanding drum with another broom handle and some sanding paper taped and wrapped around the short broom handle.This was to smooth out any shape edges.I put a mechanical fasten on one end and attached it to my 1/2 drill motor.Sand out that sleeve at a low RPM.
Than I re-cleaned that sleeve again with acetone on rags.
Now measure how deep the sleeve is you know where you want to end up.
The epoxy I used inside the sleeves is Gluvit (from Great Britain :D ).I took a paint roller and straighten the steel rod of that roller and built a plunger like tool.I mixed up some epoxy and plunged it about the sleeve.A little goes a long way and you don't want too much in there to sand out .Be sure to tape wax paper around the sleeve area so not to made a big mess on your deck.
Once this hardens completely,use that drum sanded to hone out the sleeve.The drill makes a difference here.Remember to go slow and change sanding paper often.
This should solve the water problem...but you want to reinforce that sleeve from the inside of the hull with layers of fiberglass fabric and resin.
to do this you will need to add an access port to reach the sleeve inside the hull and maybe use some Kitty hair fiberglass to strengthen the base too.

This all sounds difficult but isn't really too hard to accomplish at all.And it does need to be done.....
Good luck,Bill 404 21SE

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 Post subject: Re: Wing hole leakage
PostPosted: Mon May 02, 2011 10:13 am 
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Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2009 4:00 pm
Posts: 42
thank you bill, very helpful. i would rather not cut another hatch into the hull. but if thats the onlyway to strengthen the socket internally within the hull then so be it. i might try and get round it with a long roller, a torch and some mirrors :roll:


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 Post subject: Re: Wing hole leakage
PostPosted: Mon May 02, 2011 2:52 pm 
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Site Rank - Old Salt

Joined: Sat May 02, 2009 5:22 am
Posts: 675
Location: Columbus, Indiana
UK Sails, Under Hobie 21SE,check out
Re:Inspection ports
Posted Sat Oct. 12 2009 4:41 pm
And you can view my photos to see how I placed the forward wing sleeve access ports under the tramp.Installing these ports gave me a way to reinforce those sleeves with several layers of fiberglass cloth and west system resin.The curved based ports are big enough to reach only one arm into the hull and it is hard to work fiberglass with only one hand.Perform all fiberglass work before actually installing the port as the hole will be slightly larger than the port.
One wing sleeve base piece that attaches to the inside of the hull also needed repair and I was able to detail that fiberglass too.Kitty hair worked well for me there to build up that gusset or base piece.Followed by some fiberglass cloth to smooth things over.That base piece wasn't really very thick,maybe 3/16" thick.Now it is "bullet proof" :lol:
Bill 404 21SE

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 Post subject: Re: Wing hole leakage
PostPosted: Wed Jul 06, 2011 7:45 am 
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Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2009 4:00 pm
Posts: 42
Hello Gentlemen, Not sure if this is of interest but i thought i would post a note about our wing socket repair.
We discovered a half moon shape fracture in the wing socket approximatly 150mm/6inch up from the bottom of the socket, taking up half of the socket towards the stern of the boat which was letting in alot of water when out in rough seas. We dicided to fix the repair using some fibreglass matt, resin and hardener, filler to bulk out the resin. A laminating pouch, duct tape, a zip lock bag and a small car tyre inflator of the type you would carry in your car and an old broom handle, a long screw driver and some acetone.
Method
Cleane and dry the socket and then clean with acetone
We opened the laminating pouch to make it long enough to fit down to the bottom of the socket, rolled it up to fit the socket with a 10mm gap and stuck it to gether with blue tac, you'll understand why later.
We then cut a square of matt to fit over the hole in the socket with some overlap.
impregnate the matt with the 5 to 1 resin and hardener mix and the added hardener to stop it running.
place the matt onto the rolled up laminate pouch at the measured spot.
insert the rolled up pouch into the socket at the alligned spot, This will have all been measured out.
once in place use the broom handle to roll the rolled up pouch onto the hole.
Take the zip lock bag, roll it up length ways zipped up with a small hole in left in the zip to insert the the compressor hose. insert the compressor hose and tape up with duct tape to create a seal.
Use the long screw driver to push the bag carefully into the rolled up zip pouch and over the patch.
Switch on compressor to force the resin into the hole and push the matt over the hole. we didn't make the seal on the bag to great so as not to cause any damage therefore the pressure was about 0.5 bar. We sat with it a kept the pressure on for about half an hour and then left it with the pouch still in place for a coulple of days. oh yes and the blu tac allows the pounch to open up fully when you inflate with the bag.
We pulled out the laminate pouch and the repair is smooth and strong and the wing fits in perfectly. This is probably only a once or twice type of repair as eventually the wing socket would be too narrow to fit the wing tube in but never the less it worked well and hopefully we shouldn't have a problems with it. The resin has created the seal and the matt has added the strength to the hole as i dont think it was a structutral hole.
I hope thats of some use to someone at some stage


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 Post subject: Re: Wing hole leakage
PostPosted: Sat Nov 26, 2011 7:48 pm 
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Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2011 6:06 pm
Posts: 5
I'm just fixing up a 21 se, and had to fix a cracked wing hole. Because of the centreboard and the front crossbar, it is impossible to cut a access hatch, so you can reach properly the inside. So I cut a rectangular hole on the side. 5 x 8 inch.I reinforced the tube and fixed it. I glued it back by prepping the piece with glueing epoxy fiber cloth on the back.Overlapping by about 1.5 inch, keep the overlap untouched by resin. Take a piece of thin plywood, just bigger than the piece with overlapping cloth, and small enough to slide sideways in the hole. Cut 3 pieces out of a towel, the size of plywood. And just a bigger piece of waxpaper. Stack 'm in this order : plywood/ towel piece/towelpiece/towelpiece/waxpaper/ fibercloth with the piece of hull . Screw two pieces of wood on the stack with each one long screw(pre-drill !). So the pieces of wood can turn. Now put epoxy, thickend to a paste on the fiber cloth,lying on the waxpaper, full and thick. Stick the piece through the hole, turn the pieces of wood, so they stick outside the hull overlapping the hole. Tighten the screws, and the plywood backplate will press the hole stack against the inside off the hull. When dry, beltsand the outside and cover with epoxy/fiber cloth and finish it. Sounds complicated, but once you got it, it's very simple. And I would fix large punctures this way. Cut out the puncture!
Perfect fix, cloth on the inside, foam in the middle and cloth on the outside!
Oh, and I tied a piece of rope to the stack and pulled it out through the existing access hatch. Oh, and try it out dry first and don't hesitate to mail me with questions. I can't wait to get this monster in the Gulf! Happy sailing!


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 Post subject: Re: Wing hole leakage
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2011 2:10 pm 
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Joined: Sun Feb 08, 2009 7:28 pm
Posts: 107
Location: Washington, DC
This is a very timely thread, as the 21 at our club has a cracked socket.

To be honest, I'm kind of afraid of the repair. But the sandpaper on broom handle on drill sounds like a great way to clean the sockets. Our broken socket appears to have been repaired once before, and was too tight. In fact, it was so tight that we couldn't remove the wing anymore! And when we finally did manage to remove the wing, we realized that the socket had cracked.

My suspicion is that whoever originally repaired the socket didn't spend enough time working with sandpaper. So now we have to repair it again. :x

On the upside, I can't wait to get back out on the 21. It beats the living daylights out of the 14s and 16s that make up the rest of our fleet. :mrgreen:

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-Roland
Sailing vintage Hobie Cats in West Africa.


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 Post subject: Re: Wing hole leakage
PostPosted: Mon May 02, 2016 9:41 am 
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Site Rank - Deck Hand

Joined: Tue Oct 06, 2009 4:06 pm
Posts: 12
I just repaired 3 of the 4 wing tubes on a 94 Hobie 17 I just purchased. In my case, the tubes were broken out at the bottom, not on the side walls. On one of them, the bottom of the tube was almost completely broken out - just a disk of material hanging on by one small edge.

From looking at the forums, I think a much more common problem is cracks in the tube walls. (I have those too on the 4th tube, I'll get to that.) My guess is that the previous owner stored the boat outside with the wings in over the winter. Water in the bottom froze and expanded and pushed the bottom out. That's just a guess, but I can't see how else the bottoms of the tubes would be broken like that.

This is something that would be fairly easy to repair if you had access to it, but of course you do not. The hulls on my boat are in good shape, with no access ports, and I didn't want to cut out ports if I could avoid it. So everything is easy - except tricky because you are working at the bottom of a 15" deep, 2" diameter tube.

I managed to repair the two tubes that weren't too badly busted out as follows:

- Abrade and clean the bottom of the port, using sandpaper taped on the end of a broomstick, and then acetone and a rag on another stick.
- Cut some 2" diameter round disks of fiberglass mat
- Make a mold from a 1-7/8 diameter disk of wood (cut out from a 3/4" thick piece of wood with a 2" diameter hole saw). Screw the disk to the end of a dowel, wrap it in clear plastic packing tape, and goop it up with mold release wax.
- Mix up epoxy and hardener.
-- Note: I used epoxy resin and hardener, not polyester resin and catalyst - people often mix them up. I used epoxy because I've been told it's stronger. And I only needed small quantities, so cost was not a factor.
- Position the mat (I used two layers) and epoxy at the bottom of the tube. Attempt 1 involved placing the glass and epoxy on the mold, then inverting it and plunging it down the hole. This didn't work well - too hard to get it into the right position at the bottom of the tube. What worked better was:
-- prop the boat up at an angle so that the tube is vertical.
-- drop the (dry) glass mat in place, position it flat at the bottom of the tube with a long stick
-- slide a "sleeve" into the tube, made from thin plastic sold as a veggie cutting board, rolled up
-- pour liquid epoxy down the tube (the sleeve means you don't have to worry about getting it on the walls)
-- pull out the sleeve
- Press the glass and epoxy down in place using the mold
- Allow plenty of time to cure, then yank out the mold
- Test by pouring water into the tube. If it still leaks, repeat the whole procedure (including sanding) to add another layer of glass and epoxy.

For the one tube that had the bottom totally broken out, there wasn't enough material left in the bottom for the above procedure to work. For that one, I did as follows:
- Stuffed fiberglass mat down the hole with a dowel until it filled up whatever space is under there and started to offer some resistance at the bottom of the tube
- Using a sleeve as described above, poured liquid epoxy down the tube, then removed sleeve
- Pushed the mold in to the correct depth, and left it to cure
-- The mold got stuck in place because the epoxy had been squeezed up around the edges of the mold and locked it in from the top, but I was able to release it by unscrewing the dowel, and then cutting the mold disk free with a hole saw. But let's not dwell on that unpleasant experience...
- The above procedure gave me a relatively solid "base" at the bottom of the tube, but it still leaked. So, with the boat tipped up on its side, I once more poured thickened epoxy down the tube and left it to cure. Didn't use the mold this time - just poured in about 1/8" thick depth of epoxy and left it to cure. That sealed it up.

So, now the 3 wing tubes I repaired are all water tight. How strong it all it is, and how long this repair will last, is another question. Time will tell. Also, hopefully pieces of all that fiberglass mat I shoved down the tube won't come loose and float around inside the hulls and block the drain holes. We'll see.

The fourth tube has no damage at the bottom, but leaks very slowly until the water gets about halfway down the tube. I think it is leaking through some tiny cracks in the tube walls. I may have to try the procedures others have described on this forum to repair that. But the leak is very slow - maybe a cup of water in 20 minutes. So for now I'm just going to sail the boat and not worry about it too much.

Hope that's useful to someone. If anyone cares, I can send or post pictures.

Duncan


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