All About Seaweed

Seal up outboard hull cavity

Summary
(please click on any of the pictures for a larger one - use the BACK button to come back)

The Nimble Kodiak is built from a mold to allow either outboard motor power, or an inboard diesel. For the inboard diesel version (at least on mine), there is just a fiberglass plate screwed (yes, underwater stainless) to the bottom of the boat! Whoever did this took the time to gunk everything up with 5200, though just enough to only let a LITTLE bit of water in and start to seep into the hull laminate.

Of course I couldn't allow this to continue!

And what about the loss in sailing performance with the lightning-fast sharpie hull [grin], having that 5200-grooved rectangle disturbing the water flow underneath?

I first removed the old cover and cleaned everything up.

Next I ground down the edges where I would glass in the new panel.

Finally, I sanded and epoxy-primed everything.

Next, I cut a piece of 1/4" plywood to fit the ridge around the opening. It was soaked with penetrating epoxy and then coated with 2 layers of glass on each side.

Then it was off to glass in the new panel using fiberglass tape all around the eges, and filling with thickened epoxy around the interior ridge.

Then a WHOLE bunch of repeated fairing layers.

Sand....... add fairing compound.

Sand....... add more fairing compound.

Sand....... add still more fairing compound.

Sand....... add all the fairing compound you have left.

Sand some more.

And after the bottom job, you can hardly tell there was even an opening there!

.....and just think of how much faster she'll be! ;) ;) ;)

Lessons Learned

The outboard well is actually a "tunnel" that goes (and is completely sealed) between the bottom of the hull and up to above the waterline in the cockpit. This means that even if any part of my job should fail (NOT!), there would still be no water penetration into the boat -- kinda cool to know.


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