Livewell hull plug

[bogdan2o]

Hello,

Today I noticed a large blister on the bottom of my 16 fiberglass boat . I took a knife and scrape it off and found out underneath it some putty covering an old livewell hole. It looks like it's plugged with a wood cork.

Do you think I can use something like marine tex putty to repair or do I need to fill in with fiberglass etc.

Thank you,
Bogdan

 

[Woodonglass]

Re: Livewell hull plug

Welcome to iBoats!
From the pic, it appears that your boat is painted. If that's the case then I'd mix up some thickened epoxy to fill the hole and then try to match the paint as best as possible.

 

[Yacht Dr.]

Re: Livewell hull plug

From the pic, it appears that your boat is painted.

I agree .. looks like someone rolled some paint with nonskid in that area.

Personally l would grind/bevel the glass to make about a 2" circle .. then pack the hole with some chop strand putty and then add a few layers of 2" circle mat.

Sand Fair the area..then finish it with whatever you like.

YD.

 

[bogdan2o]

Re: Livewell hull plug

Thank you for your answers.

I got this boat 2 month ago and previous owner painted the bottom with topside paint. This was not a problem for him since he took the boat out on the water only one day at a time than put it back on the trailer.

I kept the boat in the water (okeechobee) for 2 months straight and the paint started to peel off. I was cleaning the hull with a degreaser to see how bad it is when I spoted the problem I wrote here about.

 

[Woodonglass]

Re: Livewell hull plug

If you want, you could prolly strip the paint off and get back to the original Gelcoat. If you do that then you could do as YD suggests and then gelcoat over the repair. Paint usually will not hold up well if left long term in the water unless you use the HIGH dollar marine paints.