Epic V10 repair

Hi All.

Whilst out on a paddle the other day with my brother-in-law, he hit a rock with the rudder of his epic v10. The rubber got bent back and pushed up into the hull and created a small hole. This was especially gutting as this was our first time paddling together and it was my suggestion to go where we did (my 20 year old $200 Burton escaped unscathed). He was able to limp the Epic home but now we obviously need to fix the damage.

I have done a fair bit of fibreglass work, including building several surfboards, however I haven't repaired a surfski before.

First off I need to identify the layup, to know if it is a Polyester or Epoxy resin. Can someone advise by looking at the photo? Does the black seam indicate that it is a performance (epoxy layup)?

Next I need to work out the best way to repair it. I have had a look for some repair guides, but I couldn't really find what I want. Obviously repairing the hole is the most important but I am concerned about the cracks around the rudder. These do not appear to be new and I am not sure what the dark marks are. There appears to have been something stuck around the rudder and perhaps that was to cover these cracks (he bought in second hand.)

Any help would be gratefully accepted.

Thanks and this is my first post so sorry if this is the wrong section.

Garry

PS - Oops this was supposed to be in general...

You can use epoxy on a polyester boat, the problem is using polyester on an epoxy boat with styrofoam because it will dissolve the styrofoam.
I would suggest that you google Eva The Board Lady, she has a number of different windsurf and surf board repairs detailed and some really great sensible repair information on her site. Not ski but useful.
I'd sand it all back to try to get some sense of what's going on under the old cracks and yuckiness! Guess I would repair the ding with microbaloon epoxy mix then glass over the whole area. But I'm sure there are people out there far more qualified than I am in ski repair. Seems to me that it's very important to work out if there is any damage to the rudder tube and ensure that the seal/join between the tube and the hull is sound.
Good luck with it.

Hi, This is an epoxy ski so epoxy is the only resin to use. The hairline cracks are not that serious so I doubt the rudder tube is damaged.
I would generally sand (grind) down the damaged area to remove the gel-coat and get down to the fiberglass. cover the whole area including over the rudder post area, the resin will flow into the hairline cracks and seal it.
I also plug the end of the tube with Plasticine to stop the resin filling the rudder post.
I use peel-ply over the wet resin and laminate and then cover with masking tape to create some pressure over the patch and reducing the thickness of the patch.
Once cured I will sand smooth and paint with gel-coat, this should do the trick.

Thanks heaps for the tips guys. This has given me a good idea of how to proceed. I bought some resin, glass and some white flow coat at a boat store. They had the filler (microballoons) also but I will see how I go without this first. I think I can flaten out the dented/hole a little first.

I check out Eva's site also and there is heaps of good info there.

Ill let you know how it goes.

Hi All.

So after a few nights work and a lot of sanding here is the result.

Repair went well and took less time that I expected. First night involved sanding back the gelcoat to expose the glass and then applying new glass and expoxy over the hole. Next night involved a gentle sand on the high points of the glass/expoxy and applying flow coat over the top. Final night involed sanding back the new flowcoat including to 1200grit.

Couple of things to note is that the surface layer of the old gel coat had discoloured slightly. This meant that the repair ended up a bit stained as I didn't sand back a large enough area.

Also I did apply the expoxy and gel coat around the rudder hole/radial cracks but did not glass this area. The cracks reappeared, so I think I should have glassed this area to.

This isn't the first repair that this boat has had in that area. This wasn't obvious until the gel coat was sanded back, but once that was done, there was an obvious repair (stained glass and irregular honeycomb).

All in all though I am very pleased with the result.

Thanks everyone for the help/advise.

great!