Future Sailors of America (Dan, Patrick and Jonathan) met this week for disassembly and inpection of our pre owned Hobie 16. We removed the hulls, washed off surface oxidation and crayoned the problem areas. Here is the most problematic problem… a rear impact, my guess from backing into something when the boat was on the trailer. The impact was hard enough to crack the thick fiberglass lip (bottom arrow) and not only bust the gel coat under the rudder hinge (top) but shatter the supporting glass too (not shown). There are probably about 15 other areas requiring glass and gel coat repair along with a couple of soft spots forward of the front pylons, but none so significant as this. This is a must do.
hull boo boo
jonathan scrubbing trampoline
We also cleaned the main sail with Everclear, somehow managing to not drink any until the job was done. A day or two before Patrick and I had cleaned the jib – both sails had smears and splatters of an odd greasy paint. Jonathan went to town on the trampoline with a little biodegradable Ecover dishsoap and elbow grease.
After disassembly I did an extensive parts inventory. It looks like we are missing blocks for the main and jib. Alan Vigland, the prior owner has no idea where they are. Alas, another expense.
We could almost sail this boat as is, but the hull damage from the rear impact shouldn’t be ignored. Goodness knows how long the Vigland’s and their friends sailed her like that. Project consultant and fellow Hobie 16 owner Jim Barnes agrees, he opined that it shouldn’t be ignored. Since I’ve gotta do fiberglass, I might as well handle the rest of the hull issues. Besides, Patrick is frothing at the mouth to do fiberglass work, he’s mad for making.
Buy a $400 Hobie Cat and spend another $1000 to set her straight. That’s parts and materials only. Thanks goodness for nephews and sweat equity. I keep telling them it’ll be great for picking up babes, I trust that’s true.
That’s an additional $1000 of carbon footprint as well. This old Hobie was built in 1979 with a carbon cost. One of these suckers new will set you back about $10k in 2009. Using our jet fuel analogy, if we buy burn 10k worth of gasoline, here’s how much carbon we are adding to the atmosphere…
$10,000 divided by $3.00/gal = 3333 gallons x 20 lbs of carbon = 66,666 lbs of carbon.
Back in 1979 Hobie 16’s did not cost 10k, but then again gas was a lot cheaper too, so less money could buy more gas. These are very rough estimates just for discussion, the point is making anything generates a lot of carbon, even a sun powered vehicle like a sail boat.
Now I’ll be responsible for more carbon by fixing her up. I’ll try and track that as I go.