Bottom Repair

I’m helping my friend repair and refinish the bottom of his sailboat. From above it is beautiful of form and from a few paces off looks very new but it’s actually about 40 years old. Almost as old as me. It was previously used in salt water before coming to it’s fresh water home on Big Sand Lake. The bottom was rough with antifouling paint. The boat got rocked around a lot on the ground where it rode out a hurricane a while back and got damaged with a few little holes in the bottom. I have been refining my fiberglass skills patching up the damage. But as we’ve been sanding off the old paint prepping for a new finish, more little holes in the coatings and outer layers of fiberglass have been appearing. We keep sanding trying to get to lower layers that still have integrity and some of the weak parts seem to just keep going deeper. They can be repaired effectively in a methodical way without too much trouble with fiberglass cloth and resin and a modicum of skill. But it seems that for every trouble spot I find and fix, more just keep revealing themselves as the outer layers of paint come off. There is a low grade fear that the problems permeate everywhere and all the way through and it may not be worth dealing with and we may be better off just bagging it and starting over. It’s tempting to ignore the little spots and just put on the new coat of shiny outer paint. It would look great and we’d be under sail and on our way in short order. But now, while the boat is out of the water and dry, lying on its side with its underbelly exposed to the world and all the layers sanded off looking wounded and ugly, it’s the time to deal with the little problems that could get bigger later. We’re looking hard at every square inch, trying to head off anything that might spoil the fun and enjoyment of the craft for the rest of its useful life. In spite of the age of this vessel, it has many more years of fun and recreation left in it. The original builders made a stout hull of high quality, not skimping on materials or workmanship. It’s worth the effort. It could easily outlive us. Our work may be for someone else to enjoy after us. In any case, the process can be a bit fatiguing and I’ve breathed in some nasty dust that can’t be healthy. But the progress is rewarding and feels good to work on. And there is the promise of peaceful and blissful sailing to be enjoyed in the not too distant future.