Patching up old wooden Scorpion dinghy

[eddystone]

Looking for a bit of advice for someone with very limited skills on patching up my daughter's boat; not a restoration just to make it sailable. It did sink on Ullswater on day 1 of Lord Birkett trophy race but was beached and manegd to complete the race Day 2 with duck tape (see below); I also don't want to add weight if possible as it's quite a fast boat and can't find any corrector weights to compensate. TBH it's probably only going to be used for club racing now and not over 25 knots (gust) wind. Bear in mind also as a dinghy it's dry sailed as sits on trolley when not in use.

Problems are:

1. the joins between the side boyancy tanks and the side deck are leaking badly
2. there is a major leak into the forward half depth boyancy tank, probably the seam between the bulkhead and the floor.
3. there is a piece of wood fixed to the floor underneath and parallel to the thwart which carries blocks for the control lines which has pulled out form the floor; the one on the port side did the same but that split along the grain so was able to repair with epoxy glus and screwing through. This seemd to have been attached to floor by screws from underneath and then the floor attached to the inside of the hull.
4. The decking surrounding the centre board case is loose, although the centre board case iitself is sound.

With reference to (4) |I have some plywood to shape into knees to reinforce this but was advised to soak the knees in resin first - is that just resin without catalyst or should it be mixed up?

Do you think just epoxy glue (Gorilla?) will fix the tank seams or do I need to glass them up with woven cloth and resin?
With ref. to (3) since I can't screw it from the to without going through the hull I propose to remove old screws bed it in with epoxy glue and then try to glass over it.
Is it OK to use polyester resin rather than epoxy, as that's what I have "in stock" (Trying to do this cheaply).
It could be a lovely boat but would need total professional rebuild which woud probably cost about 10 times what we paid. It's not her main boat!

 

[PeterV]

You'd be better asking these questions on the CVRDA forum as you're targeting their speciality, keeping old boats racing! For the seams my advice would be to rake them out with a knife or broken hacksaw blade to remove as much old glue as you can then get as much epoxy resin into them as you can, helped by prising apart the seam, then hold it together if necessary (clamps or straps) until set. If this doesn't work then the next up is to use tape with epoxy to reinforce the joint.
You may be able to do the same with the surround at the centreboard case. Generally an epoxy repaired joint will be stronger than the wood and doesn't require any screws but the wood surfaces need to be bare wood and dry first. I wouldn't use polyester resin, it doesn't have anything like the bonding strength, get a handy pack of epoxy and it should be enough to do these jobs. I haven't used Gorilla glue but I wouldn't, epoxy is such a good product and a real bodgers friend (it's kept my 1960 wooden Finn going for the last 10 years of hard sailing).
If you add plywood knees the advice to coat them in epoxy first is just for long life waterproofing, it's how new wooden boats are built but isn't necessary, the rest of the boat will not have epoxy encapsulated wood, but if you do it you need to mix up the epoxy, coat the parts in it and let the epoxy set then glue into place.

 

[eddystone]

CVRDA forum?

 

[PeterV]

CVRDA forum?

The forum of the Classic and Vintage Racing Dinghy Assossiation, a Google search will find it.

 

[Lon nan Gruagach]

Sounds like it has had a mighty knock, not sure if you have found all the problems yet...
But, epoxy all the time, especially for repairs. If I remember rightly the Scorpion wasnt the lightest of boats and a bit more glass cloth wont add that much more. To give you an idea, work out what weight you will be adding if you do a full glass tape job, its not a great deal.

Glue beats screws almost any day so, if you glue and glass over the control block strip it will be better than new.

 

[eddystone]

Thanks for all advice - yes it is a bit heavy so a bit of glass probably won't be noticed!

 

[NickRobinson]

Patching up my project Scorpion- far too fast and tippy for me.....
Long time ago, my son Pete was 30 last week!

I'm ashamed to say I used ordinary ply, pva and varnish.

Lower river pic not relevant, can't delete for some reason...

 

[Seajet]

A good Scorpion is one of the most eye-achingly lovely designs ever built; the first thing I bought when I got a job as an apprentice.

I hope your patch-up is a considerate one, I didn't think her heavy at all but we were young tearaways then.

My 921 was made at Rock in Cornwall I think ( but memory may be fading ) - last I knew a while ago there was still a yard there building and repairing such boats, if that's any help for a search

View attachment 59305

 

[eddystone]

Patching up my project Scorpion- far too fast and tippy for me.....
Long time ago, my son Pete was 30 last week!
View attachment 59218View attachment 59220View attachment 59221View attachment 59222
I'm ashamed to say I used ordinary ply, pva and varnish.
That's interesting - ours has a shallower boyancy tank in the bow section with a half deck over - makes a useful staowage space!
Got a West epoxy kit over the weekend so its so it's going to be held together with epoxy resin and glass matt.

Lower river pic not relevant, can't delete for some reason...

 

[eddystone]

no idea why that get mixed up in previous post!

 

[earlybird]

A good Scorpion is one of the most eye-achingly lovely designs ever built; the first thing I bought when I got a job as an apprentice.

My 921 was made at Rock in Cornwall I think ( but memory may be fading ) - last I knew a while ago there was still a yard there building and repairing such boats, if that's any help for a search
]

Just seen this thread. My 1003 was made at Rock:- Westerly Boats, (not the other lot!), they also made show winning Ospreys. They morphed into Cornish Crabbers.
Incidentally, in '74 I built Scorpion 1603, sold her around '85. She appeared on Gumtree a few months ago still looking quite smart in the photo..
Does anyone know of her whereabouts during the interim?