'76 H25 info

[JohnCTV21]

I have a 1976 Hunter 25, I fell in love with it before I really knew anything about it.
She has taken me many miles in the L.I. Sound and a costal trip from Noank to Cape Cod.

It's time to learn more. For starters, anyone know how to translate the HID into some sort of english.

She is currently on the hard in the middle of a refinish, cleaning and general detailed maintenance.

I might even consider some electronics like a "shudder" GPS.

Any information, links, documentation will be greatly appreciated

Thanks

 

[DianaOfBurlington]

Hey, John. What do you want to know?

 

[JohnCTV21]

For starters I would like to know how to translate the hull ID number, if the shelves on the cabin walls are structural at all, where the deck is wood cored and what the interior woodwork was finished with.
Thanks for your reply

 

[braol]

If built like a 27, none of the walls are structural. However, incorporated into the one 'bulkhead' is the mast support post. In the 27 it is just under the mast step and forms one of the frames for the sliding door. I like the 25...they should call it a Pocket 27 because it is stoutly constructed and I visually have a hard time telling the difference sometimes.

 

[JohnCTV21]

Does any one know what the -2 means at the end of the hull id number?
I'm pretty sure the "M76K" should translate to June 1976

Thanks

 

[DianaOfBurlington]

John's Hunter and the other questions

The shelves along the hull ARE structural. See my blog post about 'moving day'-- http://dianaofburlington.blogspot.com/2014/11/moving-day.html.

Likewise the main bulkhead (which is in 3 pieces) is structural also. The key area is how it's attached to the underside of the cabintop. This bond adds necessary stiffness for the on-deck mast step. The main bulkhead adds necessary stiffness to the compression post. These boats did not have molded hull liners till about the 1978 model year; how they did it after that I don't know.

The hull number for an early ('70s) Hunter will look like mine:
HUN25027M74H -where:

'HUN' = Hunter Marine Corp, Marlboro NJ;

'25' = model number

'0' = submodel number (here, '0' = flush deck; '1' = trunk cabin);

'27' = sequence number in production run (this in no way corresponds to an overall sequence number, as these numbers changed every 'run' which could have been a month, 6 weeks, a season, not known otherwise);

'M' = preceding digits shall be based on 'model year', with August being 'A' (if this is not 'M' then January would be 'A').

'74' = model year.

'H' = March, in following 'M' designation.

My boat happens to have an extra 'G' after the 'H' and I don't know for sure why. The only conclusion we can draw is that Diana was built in the last week of February, 1974, in which Friday was March 1st. It's possible, maybe even likely, that the fiberglass shop added the 'G' (for February) when they expected to send the boat out on Thursday and it didn't make it till Friday (in which case the HIN alteration was unnecessary; but who knows what they were thinking?). I know of no other hull numbers with this anomaly.

John, your '-2' at the end of it may represent a similar anomaly that was solved in a different way. The one thing we all have to remember is that, based on what we know today, there isn't really any way to be sure of any one 1970s boat's actual placement in the overall sequence of Hunter production. Considering that they were building one boat per day for well over five years, they probably figured a numeric three-digit sequence number (such as the HIN format would allow, without resorting to alphanumeric designation) would prove insufficient and so other numbering conventions were used. Thus, our interpreting confusion.

 

[DianaOfBurlington]

John's deck core

Sorry, John; about the core--

The first-gen ('72-'76) H25s had a flush-deck or 'bubbletop' deck design, in which the mold coaming curved over the hatch shroud on top. The mast step plate actually stood right on the forward edge of this hatch shroud, so this was beefed-up with extra 'glass and, typically, a wooden or plywood block underneath. This is not the best idea and places plenty of compression load on the compression post (note that, in addition to the rig's load, the hatch-shroud-and-deck structure is also holding the shape of the deck itself, plus you walking on it-- not always true with even deck-stepped rigs.

Worse, the section of deck under where the mast stands on the hatch shroud is just another place of cored deck. When I got Diana someone had drilled through the core to attach a halyard-lift block, and-- you guessed it-- caulked it with silicone which let all the water into the single most crucial area of the whole deck. I drilled into this, dug out damp core, and filled it solid with epoxy (using only a little filler. In places I even thinned it with acetone to make it flow further before curing).

My own solution was to cut off the hatch shroud, build a proper on-deck mast step out of G-10, and stand the mast in an aluminum mast-step plate (which I designed and had made) on top of that. (At present it's all together but without caulk.) I know for sure now that, at that place, the mast-step bolts go through solid epoxy and fiberglass, no core in sight. Rather than cut out a block, I filled this with liquid epoxy and let it soak in and cure, essentially making a poured-in-place deck structure to support the spar's load. This is the only proper way to do this, structurally-- anyone replacing a section of cored deck with discrete blocks is running the risk of (rather quick) failure.

Given a stock, unmolested, unrestored boat, the answer to your question is 'nowhere'. To my knowledge all the cored decks were cored all over. The factory relied on 5200 (there was no 4200 then) for the teak handrails and for the hardware to keep out water; and anyone who drilled without treating the exposed core inside the screwholes would be contributing to the ultimate rot and failure of the whole deck. Your best course is to explore the soft spots on the deck and use my 'patented' bonehead 'mooyock' system (it's in my blog - http://dianaofburlington.blogspot.com/2012/05/jcs-secret-system-for-filling-deck-core.html) to fill these with both minimal remediation damage and maximum potential strength and durability.