Spot on GEMINDAWN,
We have a 1984 Camper & Nicholson 58
ketch. It was seriously damaged in
hurricane IVAN while at the PO's
dock &
for sale. Big
price reduction and now its in Muskegon Michigan. We worked four years towards
restoration. One season was devoted totally to putting on a new bottom. We scraped the layers of
bottom paint and then had it sandblasted. This exposed many hundreds of thousands of gel
blisters up to about 6 mm diameter. These we ground out with a high speed carbide burr and filled with WEST
epoxy. These were non-structural of course but they were all portals into the matrix. I noticed that most of these seemed to have at least one dry glass fiber that may have provided the
water path. Some even had antifouling blue wicdked in that penetrated the matrix as well. At least, this indicated poor wet-out. We also angled with the changing daylight over the
hull and found seven bulges extending over larger area. I drilled into these and relieved several cc's of nasty fluid under pressure. WEAR A FACE SHIELD! These we cut/ground out and faired back at about a 15 degree angle. They were 6 to 12 mm deep. The finished
repair diameter was determined by finding the point at which no more 'water/acid' oozed from the matrix. This left patches up to about 1/2 meter. These we fillled with West
Epoxy and glass. I faired the bottom using a large right angle buffer with flex pad and 40 grit. Next, we applied 6 coats of Interprotect 2000E and 3 coats of Vivid
anti-fouling.
It was a horrible
project but, as you pointed out, solid GRP below
water and massive
hull thickness with even more massive
interior structure reduces my worry. The
boat is balsa
core above water but solid 25 to 30mm thick below with two layers of kevlar burried in the matrix. The
rudder was a total loss. See my photos.
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