Hull Damage Question

Well, I expect this means you are finished attempting to recover compensation from people in whose hands the boat was previously ? Are you saying it is built up to greater thickness, away from the apex ? It might pay you to get an endoscope and poke around in there, this is like a flexible cable with a camera aperture and light, to see inside things, it would not be prohibitively expensive, and may throw light on matters, and aid in planning the repairs. That does indeed seem a thin laminate for a boat that size, I have seen twice as thick in smaller boats, in critical areas. Have you tried to prise apart that cutout ? Or does it appear to be just a spray-up chopped strand laminate. Is no weave evident ?

 

Had an automotive borascope but it was small view area and confusing what i was looking at . Did not pry apart the layers . Make up inside looks all the same . The cracked edge of the core is very rough finish , loose strand kind of make up .

 

The starboard side , from the center , going toward the outside seems thicker ( as far as my finger and thumb would go ) video should be on website for weekend .

 

So there was no core behind that piece you cut out ?

 

The pics of the cross section of the cutout are too blurry to identify how many layers of fabric there is.

The pic of the actual hole looks like there's at least three layers of fabric, but that could be an illusion.

Take another pic of the cutout with it focused on it, the others had the floor in focus. Wet the edge first, this will allow us to see the layers better.

 

No . no core behind the cutout . sorry about pictures . focus didn't like being that close .

 

If you scrape away the gelcoat from the outside, and any coating on the inside like flow coat, and wet it, then the translucence should reveal any woven or directional material in there. Odds are it is just chop.

 

-picture offered for comparison only
Between caliper fingers is 6 layers of solid db1700 glass hand laid; well consolidated, caliper say 0.193", but I am cheating it in well past the fairing compound and paint layers-this glass between the caliper fingers is not really enough for your hull, but you have way less glass and mostly mat

Your boat's actual glass is super thin I'd say. If I had to guess a single layer of 1708 or two layers, but certainly way under 0.100" of glass.

Sorry, but this broke because someone trusted the hull more than it could deliver.

I was out, but I am back in.

As a builder; that looks like a single layer of perhaps 1708 on each side and coremat middle, or maybe two layers of something. We had some debates here and decided 1708 was between 0.040 and 0.050" thick hand laminated.

There does not appear to be any grand cover up of prior damage by the original owner.

The boat was probably damaged prior to shipment to the dealer or while at the dealer or while transported to you or by you.

The reason for the failure is the laminate is really weak for the boat's weight on something like stands or a trailer.

A very highly vertical section of my boat is 5 layers of the same and would measure 0.165" all fiberglass no coremat. Much better built (by me) for far less loading demands than the Rangertug.

Your boat's laminate is too thin, based on my limited knowledge about boats learned over the last four years of amateur building. Not because of what I measured, but because nothing I have built for far narrower hull with a lower speed rating is that weak.

Now. What is worse! It is possible the coremat bond or inner skin bond is secondary.

Also, I don't know if that is an epoxy boat. Gathering not.

I would be very curious as to whether a manufacturing error occured. Like boat built on a Friday and they forgot the second inner skin Monday, etc.

if you ask a number of people here to spec that hull with coremat; you are going to get a better idea than my guesswork

post script

that is really hard to tell what you have there; perhaps you could sand by hand the edges of the cutout and do so with a progressive grit starting at say 80,120,220 and then wet with spirits to see if that is actually glass or not

 

We have long ago established the boat is made with coremat; not core!

Where the coremat is in the build is unknown.

 

Just looking at the pics posted early on, that boat has an unusually sharp apex to the vee, there is next to no radius, hard to imagine why you would opt to go that way. Unless....this boat has been previously repaired ?

 

Today I lightly took off the gel coat , took off the loose strand on the inside . I beveled part of the sample , hoping it would show the layers better . Not sure if it helped . I also wet down the core as mentioned it might help . I appreciate the feedback as this boat will be fixed . I will deal with the dealership later . By opening the boat up , it will tell if there was anything abnormal in the production of the hull also .

 

It doesn't look like any previous repairs to me .

 

It looks like a few layers of fabric with CSM between them. Whether this is 1708 or something similar would require further inspection.

Typically the first layer (skin) is chopped and rolled well, using a marine resin formulated for this purpose. After that it can be a stitched fabric with CSM attached, or the fabric alone laid down in chop.

The number of layers will vary depending on the location.

Now you just need to go to a marina and find the same boat, use the holesaw to get a sample in a few places and compare them to yours.

 

I will ask my fellow Ranger Owners for volunteers !

 

Way too thin, whatever it is.