1981 Hunter 30 ft hull cracks

Apr 12, 2020
3
Hunter 30 WSM
Hello, I am new to the forum but am looking at a 30 ft hunter for sale. its a very good deal but I have noticed many hairline cracks in the bottom paint that seem to go deeper. Can anyone tell me if these are red flags? There is also a large separation between the hull and keel. I have attached some pictures. and I think I will have to strip everything down before I put a new coat of bottom paint.
 

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May 27, 2004
1,964
Hunter 30_74-83 Ponce Inlet FL
I see old, hard (as opposed to ablative), flaking bottom paint. It's probably been there for a lot of years and simply painted over with lighter blue paint without much attention to prep.
You would need to strip the old paint off, down to the gelcoat, and re-coat the bottom properly, i.e. fix damage, repair any blisters, barrier coat, then paint.
That said, the keel/hull crack by itself doesn't seem terrible BUT... The first pic shows something I've never seen. If that disintegration on the keel itself is due to freezing or impact, you've got a much bigger job. Do you know what that area is made of?
It looks like ferro cement or lots of filler that's broken. I know Hunter didn't use ferro cement and it doesn't look like my lead keel after I stripped it last year.
The fifth pic shows the cracking in the paint AND the gelcoat.
I'm afraid I'd walk away unless the seller will allow a pro to do some grinding and inspection.
Others my have more ideas, but stripping the hull below the waterline would be necessary IMHO and the result will give you lots of answers.
Let me know if I can help further.
G.
 
Apr 12, 2020
3
Hunter 30 WSM
Thank you, The boat hasn't been kept up for some years and has been sitting on land for at least a year. Its technically almost a repo but the owner is still involved to make the process a lot easier. Also to clarify the first picture is a picture of skeg which seemed to have alot of material flaking from it.
 
May 27, 2004
1,964
Hunter 30_74-83 Ponce Inlet FL
That skeg has had repairs.
Can you stand the pain of major repairs on the underbody?
I'd walk, but then I just went through a refit and I can't go sailing due to "House Arrest".
And, I'm in a foul mood!
 
Jun 25, 2004
1,108
Corsair F24 Mk1 003 San Francisco Bay, CA
Image 2317, with the thru hull, tells the story, I think. If you zoom in close, you can see white lines running vertically and horizontally in the two deepest peeled spots. That's what glass fibers look like when they are dry of resin. That's unsaturated woven glass fiber there. The laminate is starved for resin.

I would guess that this boat has perhaps had the gelcoat removed in the past, in a (failed) attempt to stop blistering. Then it was refaired with some kind of putty. The dry woven glass was not peeled off and replaced with saturated cloth.

If my diagnosis is correct, then the structural strength of the laminate is severely compromised. I suspect it's compromised across the whole hull because the cracks in the the fairing layer cover the whole hull.

There’s no reasonable way to replace all the laminate in a hull at a reasonable cost. Boats like this aren't worth the cost of repairing; the hulls should be demolished.

This is NOT the same thing as a few innocuous blisters between the gelcoat and the laminate.

I'd be more confident of my analysis if I could see and touch it in person. I’d take my knife to those spots and see if I could pick out dry fibers. It would be a real world example of something I’ve never seen personally. This is, I think, a classic example of bad lamination technique from the factory, and a subsequent failed repair.

resin starved hunter hull.jpg
 
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Oct 17, 2017
17
Hunter 31 Deltaville
Hi Steve, I have a similar Hunter Sailboat in a 1984 Hunter 31 which is the model which came out after the 1981 Hunter 30 one you are evaluating. I have looked at the pictures, most look like dried bottom coat on the hull. If the cracks I see are where the hull is attached the the keel than that is normal for that model. I pull my 1984 Hunter 31 every year, work the crack in that area grinding and sanding, use ospho on metal then interlux barrrier in on crack. BUT FIRST you have got to get a survey to fiind out if you have a dry hull. Then you are going to need to sand, sandblast, or whatever to get back to the original hull and keel so a barrrier coat can be applied to hull and keel. Here is a video of my first visit to my 1984 Hunter 31.
I have many other videos on the restoration of my 1984 Hunter 31. You can contact me if you want and I will be glad to help you in any way regarding further questions.
 
Nov 8, 2007
1,523
Hunter 27_75-84 Sandusky Harbor Marina, Ohio
I’m with Dr. Judy. The fiberglass damage is somewhere between very expensive and unrepairable, depending on how much of it is in the state shown in the one picture.

There are lots of well maintained h30 and similar boats for sale at very reasonable prices. I would shift my attention to one of them if I were in your shoes.
 
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Jun 8, 2004
10,024
-na -NA Anywhere USA
This boat is reportedly been on the hard for years; thus, the hull is dry. The keel is cast iron married to the hull or bolted to the fiberglass stub portion as seen in the pictures where the horizontal line is refereed to as a crack but is not. We are dealing with the sealant which is 5200 used by Hunter
And keel made by Mars Metals out of Canada.
Fist advice for a survey is well recommended as it is hard to determine from phots alone. But this is my thoughts.

First, gel coat was always white and what I see is multiple layers of paint to include epoxy barrier coatings and anti fouling paint peeling and falling off. That is seen in the photo Judy referred to. However, a visible inspection by a surveyor would definitely tell us. To see if ther is a leak between keel bolts and where the keel is married to the hull, I have seen yards put water in the bilge to see if water came out wher hull and keel are mated together. In fact I saw one yard using low pressure with water in the keel apply a several layer plastic blanket of sorts taped well to the hull applying low pressure
over that line to see if bubbles came thru the water in the bilge.

There is much more to say but let’s say no or limited hull damage, would you hire a yard to do the work to put on a new bottom and possibly dropping the keel to rebed it, you are looking at more than $10,000 easily. Would you do the work yourself but you will have to count on a yard allowing that, space to rent along with other fees to include travel lift. So often major repairs cost more than what the boat is worth given the age and in this case nearly a 40 year old boat. Also many start on doing the repairs themselves giving up unless that is what they want to do.

If you are still interested on this boat, a survey is highly suggested. However you may want to consider otherwise
 
Apr 12, 2020
3
Hunter 30 WSM
Thank you guys for all the inside knowledge. This would be my first boat purchase as I have worked teaching for 7 years and have just used all the boats available to me.
it’s a bummer cause this boat is so nice I guess from the waterline up. I’d be worried about stripping the paint and then opening up a can of worms. Also pretty worried about the damage to the skeg. What do you think would happen if I just stiped the bottom paint off, did a quick repair job on the skeg? I am only planning on using this boat as a weekend cruiser and then selling in a few years. Guess it might be hard to sell with all the problems. Also I do agree there are definitely better boats ahout there so I’ll keep looking.
 
Oct 22, 2014
20,995
CAL 35 Cruiser #21 moored EVERETT WA
Steve.. It is a choice.
Do you want to spend weeks in the boat yard working on the boat trying to save it, while saving a few dollars in purchase - trading for days of project repair.

Or do you want to spend your time learning to sail and cruising the waters.

Both can be rewarding.
 
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Jun 25, 2004
1,108
Corsair F24 Mk1 003 San Francisco Bay, CA
Even if you like the dirty, back breaking work of doing bottoms and other repairs, this boat is a bad candidate for repair. There are much better boats out there to put sweat equity into. New Bottom paint won’t stay on that That hull for very long. As soon as it goes back in the water, and the water ingress into the outer layers of laminate starts again, blisters will swell up, and chunks of the outer layer of the hill will fall off again.

Image 9596 shows zillions of small blisters. And the image 2317 shows gelcoat or fairing coming off in sheets, exposing glass fibers not saturated with resin. Unless those pictures are misleading in terms of the depth, that is the worst case of blisters I’ve ever seen in person and it rivals the very worst I’ve seen on the internet in 20 years.

Like I said, I’d like to see a knife blade or micrometer stuck into the edge of som blisters to get a sense of how deep the blisters are, how thick the layers are, and how many layers have peeled off. If the innermost layer that failed is more than 6-10 mils thick, it’s the gelcoat or fairing compound that’s falling off the boat.

(Typical hard antifouling paint is applied 3-4 mils thick per coat and drys to about 2 mils, when applied with a roller. If you put on a coat that’s thicker than that, it sags and creates “hangers” that take forever to,dry and look horrible. So people learn pretty quickly to not apply the paint thicker than 4 mil wet, which drys to 2 mils.)

It will take time and lots of money for materials to strip old paint off, and repaint the bottom. Reparing all those blisters is a waste of time and money. The hull will be covered in blisters again in a few months.

The crack between the keel and hull doesn’t faze me. It can be repaired, assuming the keel bolts are sound and pass inspection.

Again, this is an opinion based on pictures, not an in-person inspection. My only credentials are that I’ve done bottom jobs, barrier coats, hull repairs, gelocat repairs, laminate repairs, core replacement, and keel repairs myself, and spent 1000s of hours in boatyards observing repairs by professionals and being directly supervised by them.

.
 
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Jun 25, 2004
1,108
Corsair F24 Mk1 003 San Francisco Bay, CA
@stevegolf44

What do you mean by "skeg". I don't see a skeg on that hull. There's a keel and a spade rudder. Do you mean "keel"?

on edit: Nevermind, I think you mean the bracket for the prop shaft.
 
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Oct 30, 2011
91
Hunter Cherubini 27 Mason
Judging from the pictures, previous comments, and my own experience doing. Unless it comes with a lot of salvageable items, the only value in that boat would be as a teaching aid. As I've heard many times and I can say from experience "The most expensive boat, is a free boat"
 
Apr 22, 2011
865
Hunter 27 Pecan Grove, Oriental, NC
If you really like the boat, can get it at a good price, and the survey is good, go for it. It's not the boat that most of us on SBO would choose because of its hull defects and the cost and effort to make it completely sound. But I don't see anything unsafe about it.