Hi all! I responded to an ad for a free Sunfish in need of some work. I ended up coming home with a very heavy minifish. After a quick scrub my wife and I brought it in the shop to warm up and drain all the water we could from it. I'd estimate that we got 10-12 gallons out of it. I'm trying to upload some photos to an album. It really doesn't look terrible, but is/was still heavy. There was an old fast patch job on the bottom that I already cut open to have a look inside. I found very waterlogged foam (the styrofoam sheet much more so than the spray in foam). So far I've removed the two large pieces that start on either side of the daggerboard going forward to the bow and the supporting expanding foam; this pile weighed 30 lbs! Super saturated! I cannot imagine how one could dry that amount out without pumping dehumidified air through inspection ports for a very long time. My foam was deteriorating so I decided to remove and replace it, especially since this old patch was in a spot to allow access. I will remove the rest of the foam once I decide the minimum number of inspection ports I need and where the best place to put them is given the work I am doing.
Today I have a question; this boat has a lot of spider cracking in the gelcoat, some near an obvious impact, some not. I've seen the YouTube videos of grinding along every spider crack and then filling, but I wanted to see the fiberglass under the gelcoat. I sanded everything around one point of impact to have a look. The fiberglass shows lines in it right where all the gelcoat cracks were. I can't get any movement around them, and the area doesn't seem weaker than any non damaged area. To those of you with knowledge of proper fiberglass repair, what is the concern and proper repair along these lines in the fiberglass? Previously I've only done repairs to fiberglass car bodies that needed obvious cutting and laying up of new fiber. I'll grind and lay up new on the actual point of impact, but what to do about the far radiating lines? If I can get photos uploaded, they'll make it clearer. Thanks! -Gerry
