Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

1987 Searay Sundancer

pre-repair

Here is a list of what I plan to buy in order to begin the project. Let me know if you think I need more or if I need to also use other products.

Quantity Type Link Price

1.5 gallon marine epoxy http://boatbuildercentral.com/proddetail.php?prod=E_kit_1.5gal $96.75

12 yards fiberglass cloth biaxial http://boatbuildercentral.com/proddetail.php?prod=E_bias_1708 $105

2 gallon polyester gelcoat http://www.uscomposites.com/polyesters.html $44

1 sheet plywood http://plywood.boatbuildercentral.com/products.php?id=6 $41.75

1.5 quarts putty http://boatbuildercentral.com/proddetail.php?prod=S3_QFa_1.5qt&cat=61 $41.59

1 350 box raptor copulas http://boatbuildercentral.com/proddetail.php?prod=Raptor_COP120_350box $17.50

16 pounds mixed glass fiber http://boatbuildercentral.com/proddetail.php?prod=E_mil_4lb $76

Total 422.59

What I plan to do is place 2 resin soaked layers of fiberglass as a backing. Then fill in the cracks with fairing compound and place a layer of plywood on the outside. Place 3 layers of resin soaked fiberglass over that and finish with a layer of gelcoat. However, as I state in the sidebar below i'm not sure if placing the boat in water will push the cracks together, possibly shattering the patches. If that is the case would it be better to push the 2 halves of the cracks together and patch from there?

Another way I'm thinking of going about this is the same as above, plus or minus the plywood, but instead of filling the cracks with fairing compound I use mixed glass fiber and raptor copulas.

Still another way and the way I now think is the best is to sand both sides of the slices down to a point all the way up and down starting a few inches out and sloping down to a point at the tear. I can lay fiberglass mat and epoxy combing the two halves. Starting with the smallest mats combining the two tips and working my way up the slope with bigger and bigger patches until it's completly filled and bonded.

Since the tear tapers down and gets smaller towards the bottom i'm geussing that the weight of the boat pulled the top apart even more than the botton. There are supposed to be 2 inboard engines, but it only has 1 on the left. That may have contributed to the tear at the top being bigger, but the one on the right side of the boat does the same thing only not to so great a degree. If you look closely at the first picture you can see there are also horizontal cuts, 2 or 3, but you might can only see 1 large cut from that view. There are problems all over the boat inside and out top to bottom that need to be fixed, as you can see, but these cuts are my major concern. I might can use a wratchet strap to pull the 2 halfs together and work from there, or, fill in the whole with plywood and work from there.