Hobie Cat Forums

I ended up turning my 14T over this weekend and found out my mast wasn't sealed, It turtled in like 5 seconds. Had to get a guy in a bass boat to pull me over. Should I have been able to recover it from a turtle on my own with the mast full of water? I tried and couldn't get it to do anything. I weigh 160 lbs. I'm going to put the mast in the water and see where the bubbles are and get them sealed. What is the best sealant to use? I know there are what look like 2 screw holes at the bottom of the mast in the luff track. There are also screw holes on the top of the mast where a float was mounted at one time. Would they have been what made it go under so fast? They were spraying me like a water hose after I got it righted! Any other advice on sealing the mast up? It's an all aluminum mast, but I have a comp tip mast I'm going to seal at the same time too.

Best thing to do is take the mast down and lay it in relatively calm water and see exactly where the bubbles are coming from. If you have to remove and reseal the mast base or mast head you will want to use an adhesive/sealant like 3M 5200. Otherwise any silicone sealant should do for any old rivet holes,screw holes etc. If you don't want to worry about turtling ever again, get a mast float (baby Bob).

What's funny is that I have a mast float, but took it off. I had trouble with the screws coming loose and I heard it made it harder to right so I removed it. Those 4 holes I drilled into the mast head probably didn't help either!

If you really want to FIX the problem, drill out a rivet, pressurize the mast and do the soapy bubble thing. Replace any leaking rivets with new ones in casings. If the leak is on a seam (mast base or mast top) then you will need to remove that end and reseal or replug the mast (foam plug sealed into each end of the mast) Water is 8.7/8.9 psi (fresh/salt) at 20 ft so the driving force to get into the mast is significant and if you have leaks at both ends it can fill rather quickly

The EXACT same thing happened to us when we bought my daughter's 14-Turbo. I don't think there was any way you were going to right it from turtle by yourself. Our mast full of water/mud weighed like 150 lbs it seemed.

On the all-Al mast there is (supposed to be) a foam plug a few inches up from the base and a few inches down from the head. The seal on one or both have likely failed. I think the plugs also have a thin sheet of metal on the inside. My top plug had gotten shoved way down in the mast, and I had to "corkscrew" it out with a spiralled coat hanger section I attached to the end of a broomstick. The lower plug was easier to get to. Anyway, once these were removed and the mast cleaned/dried thoroughly inside, I replaced the plugs and sealed with good quality silicone. (Matt B. recommends Silkaflex or something like that and will likely chime in.) I also sealed all the rivet holes on the tang, etc.. I must disagree with Sunvista (which is rare) and recommend that you not seal the base and head....it's the plugs that do this job. Sealing will just make the base/head hard to get off next time and will trap any water that does get in the base. At the head, the inside part where the sheave sits is completely open to the inside of the mast, so sealing the head/mast connection would serve no purpose.

The boat sails great with an empty, sealed mast and is easy to right. However, it does still turtle relatively easy, so I put on a Baby Bob since our reservoir is shallow and a turtled mast gets horribly stuck in the muddy bottom.

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Jerome Vaughan
Hobie 16

Is it rightable from turtle with a sealed mast? I Weigh about 160

I turtled my h14t last year cause I hit the sail on my way off the boat during a nasty pitch pole. My mast is sealed and has a baby bob on it so was a little surprised it happened. I tried using my righting line to bring it back up while standing on top of the upsided hull towards the stern and that did not work as righting line wasn't long enough then for leverage. I ended up using a line I have tied to the dolphin striker and mast base... routed that under opposite hull and used that for leverage to bring hull up out of water while submerging hull standing on. It was definately interesting but worked out to be not much harder than righting from it's side.

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Currently between boats. History...
'84 H16 Tsunami Nationals
'84 H16 Yellow Nationals
'84 Hobie 14T

I also landed on my sail when I turtled it.

Pulled the mast head and base off the mast today and both were sealed up tight . There was a glob of some type of sealant on each end. I put some silicone around them anyway and did all the rivets on the mast too. I'll take it to the lake tomorrow and dunk it to look for bubbles. Hopefully this will give me time to get to the hull before it turtles in the event of a turn over.

Hope you don't end up finding a hair line crack somewhere since you covered the obvious stuff. I think when I turtled mine it went pretty quickly too but I think by the time you push the mast past a certain angle into the water then the weight of the hulls and frame now just pushes overcomes what buoyancy a float would create. I do think the baby bob helped to get it back on it's side though in my case, so might want to look into one. Besides, the float would buy you some time for those times you end up laying it over on it's side.

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Currently between boats. History...
'84 H16 Tsunami Nationals
'84 H16 Yellow Nationals
'84 Hobie 14T

Last summer I had an H14 (non-turbo) and went full turtle the first time I flipped it. I was able to right it and I'm 160 lbs. The trick was to get the righting line around the the windward pontoon in front of the front crossbar and to stand on the underside of the tramp as far toward the stern and as far toward the leeward pontoon while holding the righting line. Once the wind catches the tramp on the windward side, it will push the boat to its side with the mast into the wind, then keep leaning out w/ righting line and you'll right it in no time. Much easier to right than my new H16. For that reason, I do miss the ol' 14 for solo sailing.