Change of Plans

From a Small Refit to a Big Sanding party

Nothing learned

Many years ago, I bought a far-too-cheap mahogany dinghy together with two friends. Its hull was covered with fiberglass.

Our plan was to fix it up a little and then make the Dutch inland waters unsafe with it. That plan, however, failed miserably when one of us, while peeling off the old fiberglass, drove a chisel straight through the rotten wood into the interior. So instead of sailing weekends in the Netherlands, we spent the coming

Fiberglass – or GRP – stands for glass-reinforced plastic. It’s made by soaking fiberglass mats with epoxy or polyester resin. Once cured, it becomes a solid laminate that is widely used in boatbuilding. The big risk with wooden hulls that are sheathed in fiberglass is that once water gets behind the laminate, it can hardly escape – and the wood begins to rot.

year in the workshop, rebuilding half of the hull. And, due to our less-than-stellar boatbuilding skills, we covered it with fiberglass once again.

Over time, though, the enthusiasm for the project faded. We sold the boat once the hull was closed again. We never sailed her.

A somewhat sad story, but not one I regret – I’m grateful for everything I learned along the way. Granted, “laminating wooden boats with fiberglass” is a rather obscure and rarely useful skillset – but it’s one I have! And who knows, maybe someday it will actually come in handy.

A Déjà-vu?

But had I really learned anything? That was the question raised during a phone call with one of the friends from back then, whom I called shortly after buying Mave to share the news. “Haven’t you learned anything?” I think he asked. “This time it’s different,” was more or less my reply.

And so, on a warm July day, I found myself under Mave, happily scraping off the old antifouling, when I noticed a spot just above the ballast where the fiberglass felt suspiciously loose. I carefully set the scraper against it and poked inside. A small piece came off. I pulled a little harder – and suddenly I was holding a whole tuft of loose fibers in my hand. Moments later, I had peeled a full square meter of laminate off the hull.

A moment for which the word déjà-vu might as well have been invented. I had learned nothing.

Or had I? At least I had laminated a hull before. Turning back wasn’t really an option anyway, and giving up completely wasn’t on the table. Our summer, however, was clearly going to look a little different than planned.

The first steps

After a closer inspection of the hull, it was obvious: the laminate in the deadwood area – the section above the steel ballast – was a mess. Above the waterline it seemed fine, but “seems fine” was not a condition I was willing to accept. Too much uncertainty, too many hidden surprises potentially waiting underneath. So, after much back-and-forth and a few conversations with boatbuilders, we decided to re-laminate the entire hull. True to our all-or-nothing approach – and with the hope that this would give us peace of mind for years to come.

That meant pausing all interior work and switching outside from paint scrapers to heat guns and chisels to strip off the old laminate.

You could say: hull work had just jumped a few levels up the “not-fun” scale.

Meanwhile, I began ordering supplies – lots of supplies.

• 90 kg of epoxy resin

• 80 kg of fiberglass biaxial cloth

• 100 m² of peel ply

• various epoxy fillers

• countless tools and consumables

This was going to be quite the undertaking.

The deadwood stays

But what damage in the wood could we actually see – and what could we realistically fix with the tools and time we had?

The good news: it wasn’t nearly as bad as with our old dinghy.The bad news: the rotten spots in the deadwood – the section between keel and rudder – would have to stay. Replacing them would have meant taking the ballast off, and that was simply a step too far for our schedule.

So I drilled holes in the damp spots at regular intervals, to at least give the wood a chance to dry out a bit before being covered again with fresh fiberglass. Not the ideal solution – but structurally it wasn’t a concern.

Moving Under Shelter

One thing was clear: we needed a hall. The outdoor yard spot was no longer an option. And it was equally clear we couldn’t do this just the two of us – laminating alone would require at least four people. So the family crisis alarm was triggered.

My father organized scaffolding so we could work along the topsides. We set a date by which I had to have all the prep work done – for that day, everyone would take vacation to help us with the laminating. And my mother showed up to take care of the interior work, which otherwise would have been on hold while we wrestled with the hull.

The move into the new hall went surprisingly quickly, thanks to some kind former colleagues. I barely had time to put my tools aside before the boat was lifted and rolled into its new home. Now we were independent of the weather – but tied to the opening hours of the hall. A bit of structure might actually do us good, considering the mammoth project ahead.

Laura could now tackle the steel ballast without worrying about rain. With grinder and wire brush, she went at it. Previously, it had only been coated, but this time it would be laminated in – so it had to be taken down to bare metal.

Meanwhile, I had switched to using an electric planer for removing the old laminate – much faster. So I spent day after day planing off the laminate and sanding the surface flat. With about 85 m² of hull, it was heavy work on the wrists. After about 70% it wasn’t the planer that gave up, but my wrist. Still, extra sanding and planing support was quickly found, and so the project marched steadily towards the big laminating happening.

The final preparations

Some things still needed to be organized.

Our plan was to wet out the fiberglass mats with epoxy on a table first and then apply them to the hull. For that we needed a table at least 1.5 × 3.5 m. Then: mountains of disposable gloves, plastic cups, stir sticks, protective suits, plastic sheeting. And, of course, a clear plan – how exactly to get the resin-soaked mats onto the hull without trapping too much air.

And so the last week before the big day slipped by, while friends, boatbuilders and fellow owners kept stopping by under our boat, shaking their heads in disbelief and asking when we thought we’d be back in the water.

“Oh yes, in two months we’ll be floating again.”

How it all started