First Repair attempt. Where to begin?

baddarryl

New Member
Hi all. I just noticed this crack and dis coloring of the hull right under the mast. Not sure how it happened, but my daughter dropped in on asphalt last fall. I am not sure as this boat is new to me. I think it takes a lot of water as it seemed quite heavy after taking it out for the first time since Sept yesterday, but I did notice the crack and discoloration before dis embarking. We used it only for the fist time in Sept and I don't remember this before that. I will probably use it for the summer and dry/repair it over the winter. Will I compound my problems by doing that?

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Worst case is the mast tube is starting to separate from the bottom inside of the hull. If so
using as-is is not a good idea. Tough fix, hopefully you have a inspection port where
you can look at the mast tube. You will have to remove some of the gel coat from
the affected bottom hull area to see if the fiberglass is cracked. Although anything
fiberglass is fixable you have to weigh the time and cost vs. finding another used
hull.
 
That "discoloration" is suspect. :(

Stored outdoors, I had winter damage which caused a 2" x 2" area of damage to the keel. I covered it with tape :D and "went-sailing". Although the repair eventually necessitated one square foot of grinding—no "discoloration" had ever appeared.

A mast step (tube) repair isn't one I'd want to attack, but there are recent photos at this forum which showed a nice repair procedure. That owner won't have to do that repair again! Even learning from my ownership (and repairing) of three Sunfish, I'm not sure I could pick out an undamaged Sunfish hull. :confused:

BTW: In setting up my newest Sunfish today, I found the mast seems to have a lot of "slop" within the mast step. Moving it by hand, the top appears to move about 6" side-to-side. :oops: It sails OK. :) Is this normal "slop", and could it be a problem related to the above?

Almost forgot—does the mast step hold water?

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I would want to fix the leak prior to going sailing again. But if you really can't wait, you can cover the crack with our old standby: duct tape. Just make sure to inspect the area each and every time and replace the tape, if necessary.
 
old repair??
I think this is the most likely scenario. Dropping it on pavement generally does not hurt a Sunfish except for scratching it a bit, although dropping it on pavement is not recommended. I have seen a lot of damaged Sunfish, and that discoloration is odd - it is not like the gelcoat and glass absorb water and stain or mildew. It is hard to tell the extent of the problem, but it seems extraordinarily unlikely the mast tube had come loose and damaged the hull! I think you can rule that out.

Whatever the cause, this does not look like that bad of a repair. But if it is leaking you may find you take on enough water that it will be necessary to fix before the sailing season gets into full swing. Taking on 15 gallons of water means your boat will weigh about 130 lbs. more than it should, making it sluggish to sail and hard to get out of the water.
 
that's what I thought... since the repair looks half decent, but being on the bottom, color match isn't that important. Looks almost like 100% gel touch-up that might have had a little glass work done prior. ONLY if the hull was upside down for a LONG time and had something sitting on it to stain the gelcote, would it leave a mark like that.
 
I think this is the most likely scenario. Dropping it on pavement generally does not hurt a Sunfish except for scratching it a bit, although dropping it on pavement is not recommended. I have seen a lot of damaged Sunfish, and that discoloration is odd - it is not like the gelcoat and glass absorb water and stain or mildew. It is hard to tell the extent of the problem, but it seems extraordinarily unlikely the mast tube had come loose and damaged the hull! I think you can rule that out.

Whatever the cause, this does not look like that bad of a repair. But if it is leaking you may find you take on enough water that it will be necessary to fix before the sailing season gets into full swing. Taking on 15 gallons of water means your boat will weigh about 130 lbs. more than it should, making it sluggish to sail and hard to get out of the water.

Thank you. For the record it wasn't dropped that hard. I did talk the the previous owner and he said there had been a fiberglass repair on the bottom about 8 years ago, but couldn't remember. I had it under tarps and outside all winter so who knows about the stain. I am not very familiar with this boat or Sunfish's at all really, but I took it out the other day and it did feel heavy and sluggish. But again, that may be my novice skills. I have really only sailed about a dozen times on these and most of those were 15 years ago. I think I am going to weigh it and if it is not grossly overweight tape it up and deal with it in the winter. I have kids that want to sail this. Thanks.
 

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