G'day All,
I'm a total newby and my head is spinning from reading 100's of similar, but not quite my problem threads, and I'm now paralysed by indecision.
I saw a 14 foot Papertiger catamaran on the side of the road for $400 and despite knowing nothing about sailing or boats in general it seemed like a good price and I'd always been curious about sailing. The bloke selling it said it was good to sail immediately so I bought it, drove direct to the beach and launched it into a nice steady breeze........needless to say it ended much as you probably expect. With me floating aimlessly out to sea for two hours with two broken rudders and a hole in the deck where I put my knee through it while trying to reach back to repair the rudders!
Anyway, a passing motorboat took pity on me and towed me to shore I have decided to fix it up and learn to sail properly but I need advice on one small point.
It is a pimarily timber catamaran, with 6mm ply decks and sides on each of the two pontoons. The base of each pontoon is made from fiberglass which proceeds about 1/3 of the way up the inside of the plywood sides. Every single bit of ply on the boat is badly checked.
I've stripped it back to bare wood, cut out the rotten ply on the top of the two pontoons and patched thems using the technique in the Papertiger instruction guide but I now need to rebuild the sections around the stay fastners that have rotted. I'm planning to seal all the timber with an epoxy plywood sealer, then fill any cracks and rotten bits with an epoxy based filler and then, once that has set, put a single layer of fiberglass over the whole thing, then prime it, and finally finish it with a 2 pack epoxy paint.
My goal is not to race it so I don't care about the weight, I just want a low maintanance boat that I can leave in the shed for months and then take out whenever I can get away.
My question after all this is, will an epoxy based fibreglass stick to marine ply that has been sealed with an epoxy based sealant or should I score the surface of the wood and fibreglass directly onto the wood.
Hope this wasn't too long winded.
cheers
Mick
View attachment 426635158_6900533533390707_6017544009012896622_n.mp4
I'm a total newby and my head is spinning from reading 100's of similar, but not quite my problem threads, and I'm now paralysed by indecision.
I saw a 14 foot Papertiger catamaran on the side of the road for $400 and despite knowing nothing about sailing or boats in general it seemed like a good price and I'd always been curious about sailing. The bloke selling it said it was good to sail immediately so I bought it, drove direct to the beach and launched it into a nice steady breeze........needless to say it ended much as you probably expect. With me floating aimlessly out to sea for two hours with two broken rudders and a hole in the deck where I put my knee through it while trying to reach back to repair the rudders!
Anyway, a passing motorboat took pity on me and towed me to shore I have decided to fix it up and learn to sail properly but I need advice on one small point.
It is a pimarily timber catamaran, with 6mm ply decks and sides on each of the two pontoons. The base of each pontoon is made from fiberglass which proceeds about 1/3 of the way up the inside of the plywood sides. Every single bit of ply on the boat is badly checked.
I've stripped it back to bare wood, cut out the rotten ply on the top of the two pontoons and patched thems using the technique in the Papertiger instruction guide but I now need to rebuild the sections around the stay fastners that have rotted. I'm planning to seal all the timber with an epoxy plywood sealer, then fill any cracks and rotten bits with an epoxy based filler and then, once that has set, put a single layer of fiberglass over the whole thing, then prime it, and finally finish it with a 2 pack epoxy paint.
My goal is not to race it so I don't care about the weight, I just want a low maintanance boat that I can leave in the shed for months and then take out whenever I can get away.
My question after all this is, will an epoxy based fibreglass stick to marine ply that has been sealed with an epoxy based sealant or should I score the surface of the wood and fibreglass directly onto the wood.
Hope this wasn't too long winded.
cheers
Mick
View attachment 426635158_6900533533390707_6017544009012896622_n.mp4
