H26 Transom Crack

Fred

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Sep 27, 2008
493
Catalina 28 mkii 745 Ottawa, Ontario, CA
I have a crack in the upper (starboard) side of the transom joint as shown in the picture. I know this is not a new issue with these boats and wish to plan a repair project. My forum searches have yielded some very old posts many with pictures no longer available. I see solutions including the use of 5200 sealant, two part epoxy, bondo etc. What is the latest wisdom concerning the appropriate material for such a repair?

I'm thinking that this is a result of some previous damage as on the inside there seems to be a fibreglass patch (across the upper part of the seam) that was not painted in the same way as the original boat.

When I squeeze the joint together with my fingers it closes up nicely so I don't want to put too much added material in there. The crack does not seem to have propagated noticeably over the last seasons so I'm not too worried about it but would like to prevent water/ice ingress in the winters.

I'm thinking to use a dremel to clean out the crack, refill it with something (TBD) clamp it, paint it (gelcoat?) and be done with it.

Any ideas? Experience? out there?
 

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Jan 19, 2010
12,362
Hobie 16 & Rhodes 22 Skeeter Charleston
Are you 100% sure that is not just a gel coat problem? If so it is not a big deal.
 
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Fred

.
Sep 27, 2008
493
Catalina 28 mkii 745 Ottawa, Ontario, CA
I can gently lift the piece that is separating. It is about 3/16 inch thick which is a bit thick for gelcoat. It appears to me that the damage is due to some type of impact not a stress crack. The crack does not appear to be a separation along the transom/hull joint as you can see in the picture that it propagates towards the outside of the hull and not up along the seam.
 

Jim26m

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Apr 3, 2019
579
Macgregor 26M Mobile AL
Looks like it got smacked on the corner. If it were mine, I'd dig out the crack to the point that I could inject epoxy into it for the full depth of the crack. If it goes too deep for a dremel, or cutoff wheel, I might cut the delamination off, feather it and build it back up with glass. I would want to have epoxy for the full depth of the delamination. You can gelcoat the white back on after the repair is complete; applying several coats (sanding between), and wet sanding (220-400-600) then polishing the top coat. I wouldn't sand with anything heavier than 220 as you're building the gelcoat back up. Search YouTube for gelcoat application instruction videos. I used the gelcoat with wax on all coats, so I could sand between coats.

No bondo.

Just my thoughts. Good luck with it.
 
Jan 19, 2010
12,362
Hobie 16 & Rhodes 22 Skeeter Charleston
On the resource page of HunterOwners.com you can find a PDF that has the gel coat color codes for the H26
 
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Jun 8, 2004
10,024
-na -NA Anywhere USA
You have the transom hull to deck married together with marine putty then coated over with gel coat.
Generally it is a pain trying to put gel coat on as there are several additional steps to make sure it will dry which most of you do not know even though it is like a plastic coating.
As a dealer teaching Hunter and dealers how to repair, the first thing you need to do is dremel out the old marine putty to the fiberglass. Try not to dremel the fiberglass. Then sand and clean with acetone. Then use a quality two part epoxy making sure the putty adheres to the fiberglass. Use putty knife to push in. Sand but you may have to add more to get a smooth surface. Then spray with Krylon plastic paint color matched with a plastic paint. Make sure to mask off area so no overspray