Starcraft tear in hull

[NWcruising]

I have a 19' Starcraft from 1971 and let me start by sayin we use the heck out of it! This summer we have put almost 800 miles on her going from Bellingham WA all around the San Juan's and up into Canada. We where out this weekend and started to take on a significant amount of water. Weekend trip was over and we cruised back to Bellingham. Found that the epoxy repair I did last year blew apart. It has lasted for awhile but I am looking for advice to do more of a permanent repair. since the metal is thin I know there are less options. Also since it is close to the seam heating using a tig of brazing may cause more issues. If anyone has advice I would appreciate it, I would hate to have to scrape the old girl :grumpy:

 

[jbcurt00]

Better history please:

the crack from rivet to rivet was there before the epoxy patch? FYI that product isnt intended to cover cracks, only leaking seams and rivets. Your crack is more involved then that.....

The crack runs thru 2 rivets that look to have been sanded (ground?) smooth. Did you do that thinking it'd help w the coverup w epoxy?

have you fully inspected the entire chine area along both sides of the boat? that crack appears to be under the rib ends, a common area for cracks to develop when a boat is beat hard thru waves, used w a soft deck, side panels and or transom. Chine cracka is a fairly common repair done on many restos.

may be significantly more involved then you hope and may require the deck (interior finishes on it and foam under it) to be removed.. Esp if you find additional cracks

A patch panel can be made/used and riveted in place, but will be quite involved to do correctly.

 

[NWcruising]

thanks for the info JB, the crack was there before however it was covered with some black stuff so I never saw it when I purchased the boat a few years ago. when it failed shortly after getting the boat I sanded and ground the metal bare to apply the patch. I did remove all the bunks from the inside and redid the interior. when I did that I made the interior panels fairly easy to remove if more repairs are needed. It does run across a rib so that would be an additional challenge. I would be OK removing and replacing the rib if it meant I could repair the crack. I have not seen any other cracks just some rivets leak but the epoxy has held up fine in those areas.

 

[jbcurt00]

classiccat did some great crack patch work and posted great pix about how he did them.

Watermann will also be of great assistance

start by getting all the epoxy off and doing a thorough exam of all the hull rivets and seams, esp along the chine line. Ixd bet theres at least 1 more stress crack at or near a rivet, loose rivet or cracked rivet head.

Typically, you wouldn't need to pull the rib on the inside of the crack you posted to fix it, but access to it is required

 

[classiccat]

jb hit the nail on the head; that rib-end crack might be the tip of the iceberg although it looks like that hull suffered some moderate trauma. You'll want to go through to verify the other rib-ends are sound (Nearly every rib-end on the port-side of my SS was compromised).

once you ID all of the cracks, you'll want to drill crack stops. Thread link.

as JB said, you'll need access to the ribs in order to remove some rivets and add additional holes beyond for additional rivets for securing the patch.

Before I discovered clecos, i used screws to secure the patch temporarily while I drilled the rivet holes for the external patch:

Once I got all of the patches temporarily fastened (and I tricked someone into helping me rivet), we were ready securing the patches (backbuttered with 3M 5200). Thread link.

 

[Watermann]

Welcome aboard :wave:

Hey that's a nice Chief, it's not ugly at all. Although you have the year wrong, that cabin style in from the Mid 60's.

In my Chief thread I address a couple rib end cracks and I added hull braces to keep the other major issue at bay, spray rail splitting out. The later 70's boats have the braces installed at the factory.

A couple questions. Is your Chief an OB, think I see one in the pic? Did you replace the side panels when you did the work on her? Post some inside pics if you could.

Another thread to look at is Grandad Holiday where he repairs probably the worst case of rib end cracks I've seen.

 

[NWcruising]

Thanks for all the help I stripped out the cuddy where the damage is and will start working on the braces. I appreciate you sending me the links, I poked around and found some like it but could not remember how to get back to them :facepalm: . I am intrigued that the boat may be older than what the title says. Someone may have filed for a lost title years ago. It is an outboard and I will send more pics once I figure out the PHP issue I am having uploading photos. I am a newb so I am probably doing something wrong :frown: My wife and I have made this our mini cruiser and love the fact that we can explore the local islands on a budget.

 

[NWcruising]

since I am having a tough time uploading pics to this post I put some on my profile page. I will update as I have time and post more pics of the boat overall.

 

[Watermann]

I'm on the east side of the State, we cruise our Chief too on the Columbia river and larger lakes like Chelan. August was horrible this year though with all the forest fire smoke.

 

[NWcruising]

We did have an unusually bad August for smoke hopefully the fish where still biting. That is one nice Chieftain you have, must have been a fun restore. I have been battling with working on mine to restore her or sell it in a year or so as a project to someone else. I am really looking for a 28' Marinette so my wife and I can take the trip up to Alaska on the inside passage. Something she does not want to do in the little SC but I think it would be an awesome adventure.

 

[Watermann]

Not too long ago I saw a 25' Chieftain Express up on CL over there on the west side. That would be a great adventure in a small but seaworthy boat.

 

[NWcruising]

My concern is the thickness of the aluminum, the Marinette has thicker aluminum that is welded and still is a light boat considering it's size. I love the size of my 19' SC for quick trips, crabbing and fishing so keeping it is an option as well. It costs nothing to keep and if the hull repair holds up I will feel much better about using her. Have you ever repaired a dent in one of these boats? At the area of the repair there is a decent dent (12" diameter) that I would love to pull out while I am at it.

 

[Watermann]

It depends on where the dent is on how easy it would be to repair. If there's any sort of chine or shaped feature that it dented then it'll be nearly impossible. Post a pic of the dent.

 

[NWcruising]

it really looks bad in the picture! I don't think it hurts the performance much but since I have things tore apart I would hate to not repair it if it was not to hard to fix.

 

[Watermann]

I don't believe you could repair that dent, it looks to be creased and but the seam.