I am planning to add a second mast base to my Oasis to turn it into a schooner.
I have considered various ways of setting up the mast base and am settling upon on the following approach subject to one outstanding modification that I will need to make to the boat.
The way a factory-fitted Hobie mast receiver appears to work is that the bottom end of the mast receiver is recessed and fits over a 'nub' that is moulded into the bottom of the boat at the appropriate point so that when the mast receiver is vertical, the bottom end is held in place by the nub, while the top end sits firmly in and is held by, the hole in the deck.
I have bought a mast receiver from Hobie as a spare part; this will drop into a hole that I will drill in the deck of the boat forward of the front hatch on my (new model) Oasis.
The mast receiver is not long enough to reach the bottom of the boat at this point in the hull so I will push & fix the mast receiver into a piece of rigid tubing long enough to reach the bottom of the boat.
All I will then need to do is create a similar nub on the floor of the hull directly under the mast base to recreate the factory-installed arrangement.
I can easily drill the required hole in the deck but what I still need to sort out the best way of adding the required nub on the inside floor of the hull. I am guessing plastic welding would be the most robust way but I am also wondering if either of the polyethylene-compatible epoxies (actually acrylics I believe) would be a viable alternative as glueing a nub in place could be a quicker, easier and less-intrusive way of achieving the same outcome.
Can anyone advise me about the likely strength/longevity of bond of one or both of the above-mentioned adhesives in the context of glueing a "nub" with a fairly small footprint to the hull in an environment where there will undoubtedly be some bilge water slopping about and the bond will be subject to some inevitable hull deformation and the shear stresses imposed by the load of the sail, through the mast/mastbase, to the nub glued to the hull? (I should mention that I can, of course create a nub with a much greater bonding surface and, along these lines, I have in my possession a section cut out of the floor of an Adventure hull with the required nub on it that I could in theory glue inside my Oasis if the hull profiles match up sufficiently)
Also, any thoughts on the advisability of this approach over e.g. plastic welding gratefully received