Does anyone have images of the skeg joint? It looks like there is a tunnel under the seam about the size of a tooth pick, that goes a long distance.

There were a few pin holes in skeg. Cleaning them up lightly with Dremel unearthed this tunnel.

Will fill with West 404.

Pic in my album, Nacra Trailer



Edited by ctcataman on May 04, 2020 - 07:46 PM.

--
John

Nacra 5.0
CT
--

I don't have any pictures, but my 5.0 had similar issues. I had just coated and reshaped the skeg with West System and thier fairing compound. Didn't really worry too much about it since it was a beater boat.

--
Scott

Prindle Fleet 2
TCDYC

Prindle 18-2 Mod "FrankenKitty"
Tornado Classic "Fast Furniture"
Prindle 19 "Mr. Wiggly"
Nacra 5.8 "De ja vu"
Nacra 5.0
Nacra 5.8
Tornadoes (Reg White)
--

ctcataman

Does anyone have images of the skeg joint? It looks like there is a tunnel under the seam about the size of a tooth pick, that goes a long distance.

I have noticed my 1983 5.0 dribbling a bit of water from the skeg area while de-rigging over the years, perhaps a tablespoon or two. I thought it was just water running down the bottom of the hull. At my last outing it seemed like more dribble than usual so I decided to take a look under the skeg...it appears as though I have the tunnel too and the tunnel is collecting/holding the water that has been producing the dribble.



My hulls are bone dry inside even after hours on the water so the tunnel isn't a through leak just a void of some kind. Does anyone know why this void/tunnel was molded in to the hull joint? I can think of no purpose it would serve. I suspect the Nacra 5.7 has this issue as well. My plan is to inject the void with thickened epoxy (West System 105/205, colloidal silica) then topcoat with 2-3 coats of Gel-Kote.

Thoughts? Comments?

While under the boat I also noticed a few places near the bottom of the hull where is appears that the original factory Gel-Kote didn't adhere properly and just chipped off. Anyone else have this?





Edited by leeboweffect on May 30, 2022 - 11:01 PM.

--
Hobie 16 (3 formerly)
MacGregor 25 (formerly)
Chrysler Dagger 14 (formerly)
NACRA 5.0 (currently)
High Point, NC
--

I refinished my Nacra 570 hulls last year and had the same type of "tunnel" going on in the skeg area -- I don't know the purpose of it either. My best guess is it's just an artifact of how the seam was assembled. Mine didn't have any gel chipping like that -- but I did have some chipping of the glass forward on the bows.

When I refinished mine I also used the West Systems, but I made mixture of chopped glass strands to fill that void -- I think the colloidal silica is more of a fairing compound. On mine there was some cracking emanating from that void causing some delamination -- be warned that if you start chasing and grinding out all the fractured glass you will end up removing a surprising amount of material. Once I started grinding on mine I decided to do a full bottom job, I ended up adding 3 layers of glass, fairing everything and then respraying gelcoat on the bottom and sides of the hull.







Edited by noodlecat on Jun 08, 2022 - 09:31 AM.