You will have noted the substantial damage to the inside of the centre board and rudder casings. This leads me to believe that when we get the outside of the hull cleaned back to the original gel coat that we are going to find external damage also.
With masses of red anti-foul to clean off, a chemical stripper is the best option. Sanding or grinding off does more harm than good. You will need to use a commercial stripper which is quite difficult to purchase without a business accreditation however.
Our initial work uncovers a lot of filling to the bow area, the section from the stem head fitting has been totally damaged and built up with a filling compound, there wasn’t a brass keel band fitted down from the stem head.
More laborious stripping, let the stripper do the work, it will bubble and come away from the layer below, but it’s a slow process.
This is what we were looking for – damage to the hull. Note there was an external repair undertaken with a strip of Woven Roving glass tape and another filling job to the first plank edge on the port side. Both were just surface repairs. The first when cut out went straight through to the locker floor, as shown in the first picture below. The second picture shows how the other exposed a large hole in the buoyancy compartment.
In both cases the repair matting work had to be done from the inside. In the case of the first area in the locker compartment I had to do the laying up of the fully wetted mat whist inside the boat and working above me in a confined area, not easy. Again firstly abrading back the surfaces either side of the damage, cleaning thoroughly with Gun Wash thinners, also know as Standard Thinners, and having the wetted mat on a palette board. This we backed up once the boat was the right way up on the trailer.
In the case of the second repair in the buoyancy compartment I had to make a timber insert which would bridge between the inside of the inner skin and the inside of the outer hull (first pic below). This I bonded thoroughly in place and it extended 60 mm either side of the hole. This acted as a ledge for further wetted matting to be pushed up into, so bonding high above the hole to the inner skin. The second picture illustrates the extent of the matting in this cavity. It’s now just about ready to have a filling finish applied.
It’s important to use the proper polyester marine filler and not just automotive filler. By carefully building up the filling compound we are able to follow and achieve the same curved profile to be continuous with the Chime.
With the boat now back on its trailer we are able to get inside and complete the matting work to the buoyancy compartment and the area in the locker, now possible with full access. We again strengthen the area each side of the damage with overlapping mat and resin. With the extra cut-out made in the side of the buoyancy compartment we are able to continue this procedure as far as is needed.
This shows the completed inside work after painting, with a cover over the cut-out that had to be created in order to gain access.
