Soft Spot in Hull - Repairable?

marvin-miller

Arrrr...
Hi Folks;

I was just cheking over my Laser hull and I noticed gelcoat cracks in one area. I then pushed on it a bit and found that it's a little soft. I have no doubt that this was caused by my previous trailering method (tightenting the straps down extra tight because they would come loose). The soft spot is right in that area.

The thing is, the soft spot is right below the inspection port I just installed to repair the mast step. This brings me to a question....

If I laid a bunch of fiberglass cloth on the coorepsponding area inside the hull would this help firm it up?
 
Yes that will make it stiffer.

If you want to get rid of the stress cracks, you need to remove the gel coat in that area and then fill it again (gel coat or a fairing filler)
 
Thanks 49208 :)

I'll lay a bit of re-enforcing glass in there when I complete the mast step.

With respect to the gelcoat on the bottom of the hull, ultimately I need to re-finish the bottom of the boat as it was already painted once and I'm not sure how perfect the bottom was prior to the paint.

I think what I'm going to find is that if I sand the hull down evenly there will be areas where the gelcoat needs to be built back up.

Can that be done in selective areas and then sanded down again so ultimately the whole hull is once again 'even' ?
 
Yes it can, it's a tedious job, have lots of sandpaper..
Gouv has a good write up on it - search here for "Make your bottom pretty" for the URL
 
id put a strip of balsa across the spot and throw a couple of glass layers over it itll be stronger and lighter then a bunch of layers
 
You know, it's funny that you mention that. I was thinking the very same thing but I dismissed the idea because my thoughts were running along the lines of a wooden 2x4.

It had never occurred to me that Balsa could be used. It's an intriguing idea :)
 
balsa is light and strong with glass like balsa core phrf sailboats example j boats and
c&c are balsa core and there also very fast

2by4 is heavy pine dont use that
 

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