Hole in Boat help

[Awandering]

Hello all,

I have recently purchased a little 18ft seafarer. I noticed a few spider cracks on the side above the water line so this weekend I have sanded the gel coat off to find the fibre glass is black and the small timber behind has rotted. After sanding to a good clean fibre glass I noticed on the way she’s had filler on a previous repair

The advise I’m after is

A) is there a special fibre glass to be used for the marine environment

B) Is there a recommended method of painting. There are now two areas approx 0.3 by 0.4 without gelcoat.

Regards

Alan

 

[Tranona]

Welcome

No, no special fibreglass materials for boats, although with repairs it is perhaps better to use an epoxy system as it bonds better to already cured GRP.

How you go about repairs depends on the specific damage you have, but the sort you describe suggests that some reinforcing is required so the repair is likely to be more extensive than just filling a hole. There is plenty of material such as books, youtube etc describing repairs in GRP or you could speak to specialist suppliers such as East Coast Fibreglass or Wessex Resins.

For areas where the gel coat has rubbed through suggest you use gel coat pigmented to get a good match rather than painting. Painting is more suitable for doing the whole hull for example if the existing gel coat is faded and there are lots of little nicks and scrapes to repair.

 

[VicS]

Hello all,

I have recently purchased a little 18ft seafarer. I noticed a few spider cracks on the side above the water line so this weekend I have sanded the gel coat off to find the fibre glass is black and the small timber behind has rotted. After sanding to a good clean fibre glass I noticed on the way she’s had filler on a previous repair

The advise I’m after is

A) is there a special fibre glass to be used for the marine environment

B) Is there a recommended method of painting. There are now two areas approx 0.3 by 0.4 without gelcoat.

Regards

Alan

For any repair work i suggest you read the Instruction manuals on the West System website at: https://www.westsystem.com/instruction-manuals/

 

[Awandering]

Once I work out how to post photos I’ll
Put a few up tomorrow

 

[William_H]

Do use epoxy rather than gel coat to get a good bond. Will need some warmth to get it to harden. (needs to be above 15 degrees ambient.) Then paint with a 2 pack polyurethane paint either just the repair all all the hull depending on how well you can match the colour and how fussy you are. good luck olewill