Welcome to my world. From the first summer, Happy Camper (P-19 #817) has
suffered from this problem. "Loose tubes" are the #1 cause of my
dissatisfaction (cracks in the gelcoat are a close 2nd) with the boats that
were built in the first year(s) of IM ownership. I towed HC back to the
factory twice for repairs that never truly solved either problem. Dr. Judy
has suggested that I remove the tubes, rough up the area where they attach
and reglue them. This is the same advice that I was given at the factory,
but was told to use epoxy not polyester (what they were originally attached
with) to glue them down. IM said they couldn't do this as they didn't work
with epoxy, so we worked out another arrangement that didn't solve the
problem, but did make me feel a whole bunch better about their customer
care.
I hate to admit that I haven't made these repairs yet. My problem was
coming up with a way to relieve the stress to the hull while the epoxy sets
(and the time to do the job). What I think I will do is: Bust the tubes
loose and do the grinding while HC is on her trailer, then haul her down to
our local marina and rent a slip for a week. I've noticed that the tubes
lay flat on the hull when HC is off of her trailer, so plan to reglue them,
and let the epoxy cure with her on the water. One problem I had was the
desirable cure temperature of most epoxies which is a bit above the °50 temp
of our local waters. I have found a product put out by TAP Plastics that
cures down to °40 so will give it a try after I clear a few of my other
projects off of the list.
Now if someone can come up with a permanent way (short of removing the deck
and laminating another layer of cloth to the inside) of fixing Happy Campers
many gelcoat cracks, I will truly be a Happy Camper.
Larry
>Bill Combs wrote:
>
>> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>>
>> Bet thine buttocks, 'tho I wouldn't limit the trauma to that which is
>> trailer induced. Large, flat FRP sections are prone to "oilcanning" --
>> which leads directly to failure -- under the stress of sailing as
>> well.
>
> Bill, We had an engineer devoted entirely to fiberglass research for
>aerospace applications. I car pooled with him for a while, and one of the
>conversations touched upon fatigue life of various materials. According to
>him both wood and fiberglass have no "memory", hence infinite fatigue life.
I
>believe we had got around to discussing the flexing of the wings on high
>performance sailplanes. I think that oilcanning is more of a nuisance than
a
>factor leading to failure in this case. However, I think I would slap some
>extra glass on these tubes, it certainly can't harm, and most likely will
be
>beneficial.
>
>Bernie Johnson.
>