Arrrghhh! Kicked a hole in my Fairwind's hull! How to fix?

[Aten W Arthog]

So, I went down to the basement to start prepping my Fairwind for the new season, and find some serious "dock rash" on her: she's been holed! There's a triangular hole in the stern quarter on the port side, below the water line, size of a U.S. quarter, with thin cracks about six inches long radiating fore and aft and down almost to the keel. Absolutely no explanation how this happened, (okay, I have three kids, so I have three possible explanations) but there it is. Her cradle is a plastic bucket, supporting her fore and aft of the keel. it looks like maybe something heavy fell on her from above and bent her back. The rest of the hull and structures seem okay, the mast was not attached whenever this happened.

So, any tips on how to repair this? I was thinking SIG fine weave glass cloth sprayed with old style 3m 77 to make it sticky, then spread taut along the inside of the hull oppposite the hole and covering the cracks on the inside. At that point, I could hit the cloth with odorless CA superglue and kicker, or use medium setting epoxy. I don't race, so weight isn't a factor so much as making the boat whole and firm and good looking again. Next, if I can't find the missing triangular piece, I will need to fill that hole on the outside with some kind of filler and epoxy mix, then sand back down to original contour and paint it.

This is an ABS plastic hull, do you think testor's brand model putty for plastic cars would be a good filler for the hole? Maybe mixed with some chopped/pulled glass fibers? I want to do this fast, but I want to do it "right" too.

[Aten W Arthog]

Update: She's fixed again. I did it the way I'd outlined it previously. The Testor's brand contour filler for model cars worked fine, I liked that it dried so fast I could smooth it out with a credit card edge, come back in 15 minutes and start sanding. It helped that I found the missing piece, so, lining eveything up and hitting the cracks with superglue really sped things up. After the superglue I did cloth and epoxy on the inside, then filled the outside. Interesting how liquid CA glue immediately took the paint off the hull on the outside as it leaked thru and filled the cracks. Well, it was only krylon, plenty more where that came from;-)

The wife is a jewelry maker using polymer clay: I have her busy making me scale Harken winches and windlasses to dress up the deck with;-)

Next, after the winches go in I will try to make a helm station and wheel. I will wrap a round form that's the right size (like a thread bobbin or 35 mm film can or something) with polyetheline sandwich bag plastic sheet, then wrap it with multiple turns of kite string/twine. I will soak that twine with CA and hit it with kicker, then pull it off the form and paint it with epoxy, adding fine K&S wire for spokes and painting the whole thing chrome silver.

[Umi_Ryuzuki]

Sound like you have the damage under control.

Show us some pics of the details you are adding when you get it looking good.
We love the detail pics. :D