Channel Sailor
Active member
I had the exact same problem 18 months ago on my yacht. To avoid the need for slight bends I made use of the fact the window apertures were actually quite small, half the length of the original acrylic. I worked out the reason the adhesive failed rather early was because to cater for the expansion (in the sun) on a long length of acrylic would need an impractical depth of adhesive. I made the new acrylic to match the aperture size plus the necessary overlap specified by the adhesive supplier. Other benefits included no need to use smoked glass to hide the adhesive where there was no aperture. By the way removing the 20 year old adhesive made a terrible mess of the grp. With smaller windows it is less uv block needed over loads of adhesive lines in areas not around the aperture itself. The area of grp that is now no longer under acrylic has been roughly tidied up for now with sanding and filler then painted white. I am getting on with sailing without window leaks. On the to do list is to better sand and fill the damaged area so it does not show and paint over with a blue feature stripe or white as is now.
As it happens I used the Sika suite of products for the job, which instructions have to be followed very attentively. Plus something Sika do not tell you which is to use one of the Sika black primers as the adhesive uv block around the edge of the window and over the adhesive fillet around the edge. This works a treat as a uv block and does not come off with boat cleaning products or general wear (so far). I painted this uv block on with a brush, with hindsight I can see that using a spray method would give a more professional finish but how you would spray something that goes off so quickly I do not know.
Not the simplist of jobs I have done on a yacht but I managed to do it while afloat. It would have been quicker with shore power for machines. You have to get it exactly right first time at every stage of the process. It is not forgiving.
As it happens I used the Sika suite of products for the job, which instructions have to be followed very attentively. Plus something Sika do not tell you which is to use one of the Sika black primers as the adhesive uv block around the edge of the window and over the adhesive fillet around the edge. This works a treat as a uv block and does not come off with boat cleaning products or general wear (so far). I painted this uv block on with a brush, with hindsight I can see that using a spray method would give a more professional finish but how you would spray something that goes off so quickly I do not know.
Not the simplist of jobs I have done on a yacht but I managed to do it while afloat. It would have been quicker with shore power for machines. You have to get it exactly right first time at every stage of the process. It is not forgiving.
