by Matt Bounds, Hobie Hotline May/June 2006 (Volume 35, Number 3), pp 26-28
Wally Myers and I were talking about the upcoming 2005 Hobie 17 North Americans in Rehoboth, Delaware – practically in Wally’s back yard. He was lamenting not having enough vacation time to do the event. I was regretting having sold my H-17 a year earlier. The seeds of a scheme were germinating that would benefit us both.
So, I picked up Wally’s #1 Hobie 17, “Megawatt”. Wally’s other H-17 had been struck by lightning and was named “Gigawatt” because of the charge she took. Megawatt was Giga’s younger sister—but still a very mature 18 years old. Megawatt’s claim to fame was winning the 1997 H-17 Continentals. I found her in Wally’s vegetable garden—she had been there for a while and was very dirty. The North Americans were in four very short weeks.
My goal in preparing Megawatt for the Hobie 17 North Americans was to clean her thoroughly, replace anything that was broken or suspect and upgrade as necessary. The keys to winning a five-day event are: keep it clean, make sure everything works and try to keep anything from breaking. These same goals can apply to restoring any used Hobie that’s been sitting in your backyard for years.
Cleaning / Assessment
As soon as I got Megawatt home and unloaded from the double-stack, she had a good bath with a scrub brush. The decks were cleaned with non-skid cleaner. Everything was stripped down—all lines were removed from the mast and the platform. I left the tramp on for the time being. After the thorough bath, it was easier to tell what needed attention. The wing sockets on the port hull that wouldn’t hold water would be one thing that needed attention. Wally had hinted there “might be a leak in the wing tubes.” Only a big deal if it wasn’t fixed.
Mast and Rig
There was a split in the Comptip sail track just below the halyard hook. This allowed the sail’s bolt rope to pull out of the track at the top of the mast. Fortunately, Hobie makes an aluminum track piece that replaced the split section and prevents the sail from pulling out. That, and wet sanding / buffing the Comptip, took care of restoring the upper part of the mast. The lower part absorbed a lot of metal polish (silicone spray), but it made the black aluminum shiny and slippery. A few spare parts repaired and upgraded the downhaul to 7:1. The main halyard was replaced and the halyard hook inspected for bending and / or cracking. No problems there.
After watching Wally break a bridle wire on his H-16 at Wildwood, I didn’t trust the wire rigging on Megawatt. This boat had lived in salt water and all the wires were original. If I was going to use this boat for more than five days, I would have bought new wires. Instead, I stripped the plastic coating off, thoroughly inspected the wires from end-to-end and wiped them down with silicone lubricant.
They looked OK – no fish hooks. Nevertheless, I used the trapezes off my H-16, since they are the same length as the H-17 and a lot newer than 18 years.
Hull Refinishing
I spent an entire weekend stripping the old hull stripes off, filling scratches and dings, wet sanding, machine buffing and waxing. The hull stripes came off with a heat gun, a plastic scraper and a lot of elbow grease. The final bits of adhesive were removed with acetone. Bottom scratches were filled with Formula 27 filler. Visible scratches were filled with white gel coat thickened with fumed silica. The repaired areas were sanded with 220 grit wet, then 320, 400 and 600 (all wet) in ever increasing areas around the repairs. The entire hull (not deck) was sanded with 800 and 1000 grits wet, then machine buffed with 3M Rubbing Compound and then 3M Finesse-it II. A final coat of wax and Megawatt looked like she had just been popped out of the mold! The decks were just machine buffed to take off some of the oxidation, but not to reduce the non-skid.
Wing Tube Repair
Once I had figured out that the wing tubes leaked, I needed to find the exact source of the leaks. A soapy water spray down the tube while slightly pressurizing the hull with a small shop vac identified them quickly. Bubbles came from the splits in both tubes on the port hull, both near the bottom of the tube (see the sidebar which explains in detail how to perform this easy repair). The leak in the front tube was much worse, so I cut an access port in the deck so I could reach the inside, too.
A shelf paper drape made cleanup easy. A piece of fiberglass tape is draped across the hull at the location where an access port will be installed. The gel coat must be sanded off inside the tube to provide clearance for the tape.
Sanding is done with an electric drill, a 1” drum sander and an extension. A homemade swab is used with acetone after sanding and vacuuming. A piece of 2” PVC pipe is used to make sure the wing will fit after the repair.
The split before–view through the access port. You can see the black line of the split running up from the support “cone”.
The split after – a piece of fiberglass tape / polyester resin has been laid down both inside outside of the tube. The joint between the tube and the cone has been filled with resin thickened with cotton fibers to further reinforce the repair. The inside of the tube was lightly sanded to remove burrs and sprayed with a good coating of dry lubricant before the wings were reinstalled.
Trampoline & Rigging
Fortunately, the 17 has very few sail controls. The boom was stripped down, both the wire and line portions of the outhaul were replaced, and a new in-haul bungie installed. The gooseneck was replaced with the newer version, since the old style has a bad habit of breaking. The tramp was re-laced with bright red 1/4″ line. The downhaul was upgraded to 7:1; the line was 37’ of 3/16″ pre-stretched polyester. The mast rotation control came from my old H-17—a ceremonial piece of the boat that always tried to win a continentals, but always came up short. It’s nothing more than a three foot piece of 1/4″ line, marked where it is set with the rotator pointed at the shroud.
Foils
There was not much to be done here. Megawatt may have been dirty, but the EPO rudders and centerboards only needed a little wet sanding and not much else. The centerboard lines were replaced. Hobie 20 style tiller connectors were already installed, so the rudders were easy to align. The rudder lock-down mechanism needed a little adjustment and lubrication. I bought sister screws and a couple of extra cams just in case. I never needed them.
Final Assembly
I put the entire boat together in the backyard to make sure I had all the bits and pieces. The frame bolts were tightened up with a T-handle hex wrench after using non-seize lubricant on them. The trampoline was laced as tight as I could get it. The re-rigged mast was stepped and the trapezes connected.
The rudder system was fully assembled for the first time. I tested the rudder alignment and lock down mechanisms. Only a few minor adjustments were required, thanks to Wally’s tuning.
I would be using my own sail for the event, so I transferred battens, rigged the sail and tweaked the batten tension to get a consistent shape from top to bottom.
A final, finishing touch was provided by Matt Miller at Hobie Cat—brand-new “Hobie 17” stickers for the aft corners of the hulls—just like the new boats!
Testing
When I got to Rehoboth, the scales awaited. The only thing I couldn’t fix on Megawatt was how much she weighed. She tipped the scales at 348 pounds; a little on the heavy side, but still very competitive. The new boats were at or below minimum (340 #).
It was important to get out on the water and test everything out before the racing. An evening sail later, I had rediscovered how easy it was to blow out an old style main traveler on the H-17. Again, if this was my own boat, I would have upgraded to the deep profile track or even a new crossbar with the integrated track. Fortunately, I had several spare travelers. I had previously removed the traveler end cap off the track so that the car could be replaced on the water (a knot in the traveler line keeps the car from running out the end). A couple of trips back and forth to the beach to make minor adjustments, check for leaks (none serious) and this project was done.
Megawatt was ready to take on the continent!
