What do these cracks mean?

[Tom R]

I was sanding the hull of my Typhoon this weekend and noticed several small hairline cracks in the hull running parallel to the water line at about the boot stripe. These cracks are on both sides of the boat in line with the mast. I recently put in a compression post, could I have raised my cabin too far? Also, how do I repair these cracks?

As always, thanks for any advice.

Tom




srockaway@dcr.net

[John R.]

I was sanding the hull of my Typhoon this weekend and noticed several small hairline cracks in the hull running parallel to the water line at about the boot stripe. These cracks are on both sides of the boat in line with the mast. I recently put in a compression post, could I have raised my cabin too far? Also, how do I repair these cracks?

As always, thanks for any advice.

Tom

Tom it is very hard to determine the cause of cracks such as those that are on your Ty via a message board. It is the sort of thing that really needs to be seen and inspected to determine a cause. Based on your description of the cracks it sure doesn't sound like any type of impact or hard grounding damage. On the other hand it definitely doesn't sound like just a gel coat problem either. Being that the crack areas are generally in line with each other athwartships and inline with the mast you can make a reasonable assumption the mast, supporting structure or rigging may be the root of the problem. I assume there is no evidence of stress related damages at or near the chainplates, correct? If not then you may be able to leave the rigging out of potential causes. The compression post you mention could indeed be the culprit but you don't go into enough detail about the post, it's mounting and support or how long it has been installed (you say recently).

I haven't been in a Typhoon in a long time so I ask is there a bulkhead or floor(beam athwartships)in the area where the cracks emanate from? If so, is that compression post using either one as a base or support? If so, then I think you may be on to your problem source. Is the sole glass tabbed or taped to the hull in the near vicinity of the cracks? If so, is that sole supporting the new compression post? You have some Sherlock Holmes work to do to come up with some leads. Once you have more details you should be able to figure out what is going on. If not post another message with further details and some of us will further try to help you out.

For repairing *gel coat* cracks just consult the archives. There are numerous outlines on how to do it. If you determine it is not just a gel coat problem but it is also structural (my assumption from your comments)the come up with more details so we can give you a better attack towards repair.