Holes in the Boat

[Anne]

Everyone customizes their boat. After so many years, there's been alot of it done: there's a new head, the interior is yellow, the salon has velcroed pillows to create a 'couch'. And I'm starting to do a bit myself.

Read more about it here.

[Stuart Bell]

Great article - but the URL doesn't seem to work.

Holes in fiberglass are no worse than painting the outside of the house purple. The previous owner of my boat had 2 8" speakers in the cockpit - they were old, didn't work, and leaked water - so out they went.

I backed the hole with epoxy saturated glass cloth and cardboard - after it set, removed the cardboard (wax paper made it easy), and put on 2 more layers of glass cloth. Then I put on 2 layers of polyester filler (I use auto body filler - cheap and works fine - and painted the result to match. You can't see the holes unless you look very, very carefully and know where to look.

If the outside is gel coat, just get matching gel coat and apply a coat, sand with 120, second coat, sand with 240, third coat and wet sand to a polish with very fine paper. A fair chunk of work, but not impossible. and p a good glass person can do it for 2 hours labor - maybe $150 or so.

But, if you put a hole in the boat you may admit water - be sure the place you choose is very sheltered.