Kracker Jack
04-18-2018, 07:01 AM
As some of you might know I ran my v20 in from 30 miles offshore and took a serious butt whoopin over month ago. After inspecting my hull I noticed I had a 50 to 60 inch lateral type fracture/Delam running down the flat of the bottom “step lift” chine. Fellas when I seen I freaked I knew it was the chine my stringers sat on.....or did I? With a bunch of emotions going I walked away the boat for about 2 weeks I couldn’t even look at it!!! Well I calmed down and decide to go and investigate what happened. I crawled under the boat and started looking around and I said to my self my stringer does not sit on that chine....it sit on the next one up!!! Which was solid as a rock. I crawled out from under the boat and jumped for joy!!!! I have never been so happy about a crack down the middle of your boat. So I broke out all my grinders and tools and started grinding and guess what I found? A void behind the gelcoat and chopped glass that I could run my pinky finger in! I had noticed when I first built the boat that the bow stem up towards the bow eye had hollows and voids that I had to grind out and fill with structual filler. I grinded out the keel up towards the bow stem and it was the worse shape. I’m gonna post pics showing repairs and voids as I found them. I used a coal chisel to lightly tap on the bottom in spot to find the dead sound where there was a void.(butt end of coal chisel had the perfect pitch to find dead sounding hollow spots) so it wasn’t my stringer at all. I’m sure I’m not the only boat that came out of that factory with voids in it.