Unexpected Hull Repair

I had covered the boat for winter using a big blue Canadian Tire tarp supported by electrical conduit pipes bent over into upside down “U” shapes. I used four of these hoops which in hind sight were not enough. I should have used maybe five or six.

I checked up on the boat on a regular basis, and while I found sometimes a knot had come loose and a corner was flapping, it generally did the job of keeping the snow off the boat. As winter wore on and less snow fell, I checked in on her less often. Big mistake! What happened was, we had a big wet heavy dump of snow – the kind that feels like you are shoveling cement – followed by a day long heavy rain. Then everything froze again. I did not think too much of it. My sister was visiting from out of town so we thought we would show her the boat. As we pulled up, something did not look right. The back end of the tarp, (the part covering the cockpit) was all caved in and one of the conduit poles was broken and poking through the tarp at a strange angle. I climbed the ladder up to the cockpit with a sense of dread. Sure enough, the tarp had caved in where the poles had broken under the heavy weight of the snow. Then the cockpit filled with water and froze. I had a solid block of ice in the cockpit about 2 1/2 feet wide by 5 feet long by about a foot deep. That was some ice cube! The tarp was frozen into the middle of “The Cube”, so I could not even get into the boat. We went at “The Cube” with hammers and screwdrivers breaking it into manageable hunks that we could throw over the side of the boat.

Finally, we got most of it out and were able to lift the tarp and actually get into the boat. I climbed down inside and lifted the floorboard out of habit just to check for water in the bilge. NO WAY!! The bilge was full up ice almost to the top of the batteries. (Here after to be called Cube 2.) “Cube 2” was not slushy ice either – another solid block. I felt sick to my stomach. It took me two days of chipping, adding hot water then sponging out and using a heater to get “C2” out and to see the bottom of the bilge again. What a job! I guess what happened was, when “The Cube” invaded the cockpit, water was able to flow into the boat around the cockpit seats thus providing the raw material for “C2.”

With “The Cube” and “C2” finally out of my life I got around to looking at the rest of the boat. Looking at the hull I noticed that the antifouling paint had come loose on both sides of the hull in about the same place where “C2” took up residence in the bilge. I guess there had been some expansion after all. I also noticed a crack forming in a strange place further up the keel toward the bow. As I chipped away at this new crack I found that I was actually peeling away what looked to be a layer of fiberglass wrapped around the bottom of the keel running some 6 or 7 feet long. I decided to have the hull checked out by a professional who I hoped would give me some advise on this crack as well.

I met a fiberglass/hull man the next evening at the boat to check it out. He was not worried at all about where the hull had expanded by the bilge, however the crack in the keel did not look good to him. He went at the crack with a 2″ chisel and hammer and in about 30 second had peeled off a huge layer of fiberglass that had been stuck to the bottom of the keel by a previous owner (PO). I guess this layer was part of an old repair that had been done rather poorly in the past. The glass had been laid up right over the gel coat which I understand is a no no. He advised me to peel all the old repair off, then grind the gel coat off and then he would come back and do a proper repair.

I did the required peeling and very quickly found out why he had me do the grinding. I still sometimes close my eyes at night and taste the fiberglass dust and feel the itch and burn of it picking and poking its way into my skin. After cleaning the old area up we noticed that the hull was dripping from a couple of cracks that we had exposed when grinding. No problem my repair guy said, just drill a couple of holes up into the keel and let the water drain out. So drill I did – except that did not go as planned either. No sooner had I drilled a couple of holes but chunks of fiberglass resin started falling out of the area around the cracks and holes. When all was said and done and the hull had stopped blowing chunks, there was about a 5 inch hole in the bottom of the keel right to the imbedded iron ballast.

To me this was a rather disconcerting sight, but to a hull repair guy its just another day on the job. I watched in amazement as he quickly made up a patch that he plugged into the hole. Then after waiting a couple of hours for it to dry he laid up a new repair and smoothed and faired it into the old gel coat. When he was done, you could not tell where he had worked. It looked and felt perfect to me. All this was done in about 4 hours. I have a new respect for guys who work with fiberglass – mine turned out to be a real artisan.

I guess that cube 1 and 2 were in a way good things as they exposed a problem that I had not been aware of before. Now, I am confident the hull is in good shape and in a proper state of repair.

Next time: 3… 2… 1… Launch!!