Bow repair

chrisfsi

New Member
Yep, it's "get the boat ready for next season" time - hence the questions... I tend to get quite a bit of water inside the boat, but have never been sure of how. The mast-step seems fine - have tried the "fill it and leave it" test, and the level doesn't go down at all. Also, no other obvious points of ingress. However, have now more closely inspected the bow, where it appears the boat took quite a knock (before I bought it..) and I suspect the seal between the deck and the hull may be damaged.

The underside of the lip of the bow is definitely damaged, small bits of the lip are broken off, and the there are some loose bits of fibreglass also under the lip - still connected, but wobbly - bit like a loose tooth.. There also seems to be some separation between the outer lip (part of the deck?) and inner lip (part of the hull?) - if that makes sense.

There's no damage to the hull itself, and all this is right on the prow - where there's just the flat part of the nose..

Question: how best to repair? Assume I will need to lay boat upside down, I was planning to put a fibreglass gauze inside the lip, and paint with epoxy to seal. Also dribble epoxy between inner and outer lip to secure. Then finish with gelcoat.

Any other suggestions? Boat is old and used for club racing only, so not worried about aesthetics, but would prefer not to hamper my (already limited) chances of winning by having several pints of water swilling around the hull.

Thanks again,

Chris
 
Before repairing this, you might want to check whether indeed this is the cause. You can do this by pumping air in the hull (a manual bike-pump taped to the transom plug hole works fine). check with some water with soap whether the air escapes through the suspicious spot. While you are at it, check the entire boat for leaks. Especially the daggerboard-trunk and the bailer can be leaky, but any screw hole can led in some water as well.
It is probably a good idea to repair the spot you described. I don't have any exprience with that (I am sure someone else will be able to give you some more directions on that). However, first of all, you should make sure that you tackle the actual problem. It sounds to me that you get more water in the boat than can be caused by a leaky bow, since the bow rarely dives in a wave (at least mine) to take in so much water.

Good luck!

GWF
 
i am voting for the leaky bow as a suspect. The bow does a lot of dipping into the waves and besides that, I had a leak there once and it took on an annoying amount of water.

I whacked into the side of a Kirby 25. dead on. T bone Whack!! Didn't do a thing to his boat.
It was 100% my fault.

I was looking at a topless young beauty ...OK I was staring. But so was he and everybody on his boat and the first any of us knew of the other boat was the crunch of my bow. so we all thought it was pretty funny

Anyway...

I would try to dig out all the loose pieces.
Then I would use a ddremel tool with a 1/8 inch ball cutter on the tip and dog out some more of the white stuff that is not fiberglass reinforced but lies beteeen the deck laminate and the hull laminate.
I would then fill the void with either
3M Vinlyester Blister Filler
Or
West System Epoxy with some milled fibers and fumed silica.

neither filler is particularly good about holding the bow together if you whack it again but, ewitehr filler will do a fine job until you are distracted and whack into something.

While you are fixing the bow,look for other cracks along the gunwale. You mat as well rout them out and fill them too.

Depth of the groove you should make?? I usually dig in about 1/4 to 3/8 inch ( 7 to 10 mm)

Before you test the boat, place some sort of a wick through the drain hole and try to dry the boat 100% of moving water.

Best part?? you will have to go sailing to see if you fixed the leak.
 
Thanks to all for suggestions - I will indeed check the other spots for possible leaks, but the bow is most likely in my view as well - I sail on the sea, often in choppy conditions, and the bow spends more time than it should under water.

Gouvernail - all I can say is, I wish I sailed in climes where topless beauties presented themselves...:rolleyes:
 

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