repair

I have a leak in the drain hole. How to repair it? There is a ~5mm hole in the drain hole, near the deck. I checked that if I pour water inside the hull (through an inspection port) it comes out through the drain hole (though the hole I want to fix). How to fix it? The place is pretty tricky, I...

How does one go about resurfacing the older foam foils? Recently started a project with an older Laser, the foam foils had been exposed to the elements for years, the rudder is in a fairly good condition given the exposure, but the daggerboard has cracks appearing on the surface. The leading...

Hello, I'm a new member. It took me three years to find a small sailboat for sale here in Anchorage, Alaska. I finally found a 1972 14-foot Starfish. We are building a cabin on a lake and I have always wanted a small sailboat. I found it on Facebook marketplace and it looks to be in good...

My recently-puchased 1966 Sunfish came with a poorly executed, poorly aged top paint job. I'm planing to just enjoy sailing the boat this summer, then putting some time in during the winter to get it looking a little better. I've read through all the thread on gelcoat wet sanding and/or top...

Hi everybody, last fall I bought my first real sailboat, a Pearson 24! Unfortunately the day I bought it and took it for a sail a piece of fiberglass delaminated from the rudder. When I took the boat out of the water for the season, I discovered that it actually is a solid wooden rudder, and a...

Quick story: a few days ago, while rigging down my old beloved Laser, the bottom end plug of the upper mast got stuck in the lower mast. Since it is a carbon upper mast now, I had assembled the plug using 3M 5200. That new mast always had a plug that is fairly tight, and I presume some extra...

Hi All, It had been around a month after I had noticed a bit of rust coming out of one of the screws of my control lines cleat on the deck... So yesterday I finally had a day where I was not in a rush and could take my toolkit to the club and attempt to replace it. I go there with my...

I turned my new (very old) boat over for the first time to inspect its state. There's a variety of damage, including areas where the gel coat has worn through to reveal the mesh beneath, some cracks that are wider than hairlines (concentrated at the front of the daggerboard trunk) and hairline...

Now before anyone gets mad at me for posting about an imitation sunfish in the Sunfish Forum, here me out! I have a Lockley-Newport Panther that is essentially the same thing as a Sunfish, so I imagine the hull repair would be the same, hence this seemed the most relevant place to ask. Also...

When replacing a Laser vang tang does the Tef-Gel, anti corrosion paste, need to go between the whole tang and the lower mast section or only at the Rivets? After replacing the tang with just Tef-Gel on the rivets and in the holes I cleaned the old tang. I noticed the old tang had some...

First post, just joined today. Heading to Lake Moomaw. My wife bought me a sunfish for $50. I was scared to open the sail bag, but turns out the sails are new. Lucky me! Boat has been sitting turned over in the woods in a pile of leaves for 3 years. I built a wood rack for it a couple of nights...

Hey all Working on bringing back this Laser and was wondering about best practices to repair the damage shown in the attached photos. She is obviously well worn so not looking to repair to class specs or anything but would like to tackle the gelcoat damage. Should I dremel these out, gelcoat...

Hello all, I recently got a 470 in good condition but at the back there is a bit of de-lamination. I was wondering if anyone knows what would be the best way to fix this? There might still be some dirt and leaves under the red panel. Thanks in advance.

Hi everyone! Long time reader from Norway here. So the Covid-19 isolation leaves plenty of time for work that hasn't been done earlier... I have a 1983 LASER that is taking in some water. The boat is in general good overall-condition, the mast step is tight and the drains have been replaced...

Hi all! I'm about to make mini "service/repairing" on my laser, because I've noticed that somewhere silicone is gone, somewhere I still have glue marks on a hull, somewhere I have some weird black lines (probably from rubbing with something). And the questions I've got are: 1) If I'm going to...

Hi all, I bought an old Sunfish fixer upper and am trying to remove the old De Persia bailer. The nut is missing, but try as I might, I'm unable to remove the bailer. Any tips what to do here?

Any suggestions for replacing/repairing the entire capri 14 mast step structure? Has has anybody done this? Bought a Mod 1 from 1984-86 earlier this year. It had been used by a local yacht club and stored outdoors in our notoriously wet conditions (Seattle). When I bought it I noticed some...

Hello all, I'm a former Laser owner and have decided to get back into it by purchasing a relatively lightly used 1978 vintage Laser. Interestingly, it's about the same age as the boat that I used to sail some years ago. I have been reading a lot of posts about the mast step, and I'm preparing...

So I hit a rock or something in August, and damaged my new daggerboard, and over the winter seems like a great time to fix it. This forum seems to have great advice for stuff like this, but there's nothing in the FAQ for this, and searching "daggerboard repair" didn't seem to get what I'm...

I was able to turn boat over (by making a drainage hole) and got water out of sunfish. I started the leak test. So far just found a few along the metal trim. There has to be more given the amount of water that was in there. In the meantime I was going to order inspection ports, if someone has a...