Sealing up the water ballast...

There were some holes in the bottom of the hull to fill the water ballast.  Eddie had sealed these up with little metal plates and tar.  They had leaked and the hull was full of water and sand.  I assume Mississippi River water and sand.  LOL  The sand was very, very fine.   I do not plan on sailing this boat, so really don't want to drag the 200-500 pounds of water around that would be in the water ballast.  

I flushed most of the sand out.  I now need to turn the boat over and flush out as much of the remaining sand and let it dry out.  Then I will finish patching up the holes. 

 

 

I am going to follow the West Systems Repair Manual guidelines which describe tapering the repait area back at a 12:1 ratio.  I used my calipers to measure the thickness of the fiberglass at the hole and determined it was .31"  At the recommended tapering, I need to go 12x.31", or 3.72"



As you can see in the picture below, I need a bigger taper area.  About 1.5" radius larger than I have ground so far.   BTW, I am using an angle grinder with a metal grinding disk to do this work.  I will try a flap disk for the next phase. 

There are also some various dings and gouges from previous uses  Around the metal keel stip.  I will fix them with epoxy filled with colloidal silica.  I am thinking I might fair the area between the hull and the keel.  I have decided to repaint the hull with some left over Awlgrip and thinking I might as well do the long board and complete job on the boat.  

This boat rows shockingly well.  I feel  guilty not making the hull as good as I possibly can. 

Next, I need to figure out how I want to make a backing plate.  I am going to try the method described in the manual where I will make a single layer fiberglass piece which I will cut out with some scissors or the Dremel, then bend it enough to get in the hole where I can fasten it while it is bonded to the inside of the hull.