Fixing a Strip Built Wooden Kayak

I lent my Petrel Sport to a friend while doing a day paddle from Bailey’s Mistake along the Bold Coast of Maine. This section of coast is known for steep, rugged cliffs with the surge of the ocean impacting directly with the rocks.

It is a spectacular area to paddle, and I really enjoy the interaction of the waves on the rocks and feeling the energy at that interface between ocean and land. This means we were paddling within feet of the rocks most of the time as the surge of the swells moved in and out between the ledges. It is a dynamic environment.

Going through one slot, my buddy mistimed things a bit and ended up pushed into a bit of a pointy rock with some force. It was not enough to punch a hole in the kayak, but it did mess up the exterior fiberglass and dig into the strips.

The strips are 3/16″ [4mm] thick, and there are two layers of 4-ounce S-glass on the exterior and a layer of 6-ounce Carbon Fiber on the interior. This was sufficient to keep the point of the rock from penetrating all the way through. There was no sign of damage on the interior.

While my buddy was upset at “wrecking” my pretty boat, I don’t consider them that precious. I build them to be used and accept that the way I use them may result in the occasional need to do some repairs.

I continued to paddle the kayak for the rest of my time in Maine. A little tape over the wound kept most of the water out.

When I got home, I spent an hour or so for four days doing the repair. The basic process was to remove the loose fiberglass, sand the wood smooth, feather the edges of the fiberglass, then re-stain the wood, apply several layers of fiberglass as a patch, sand it smooth, and then refinish it with varnish.

I use a small, random orbital sander to clean up the damaged spots. I didn’t want any loose fiberglass to remain, then sanded out to about 1 to 2 inches around the wood. I didn’t sand into the wood more than necessary and tried to make a good, gradual taper from the outer surface down to the wood.

After sanding up to about 120 grit, I applied new stain to the wood. I thought I had the same color stain that I had used when I made the boat, but I guess it was a bit off, so it doesn’t quite match. Only the exposed wood needs any stain. I tried to use denatured alcohol to remove stain that was on the epoxy and fiberglass.

Because the wood was badly bruised, the grain in the damaged area soaked up more stain than in the pristine wood. This caused a dark spot in the bruised wood.

I used a heat gun to accelerate the drying of the stain and to warm the wood up a bit. By applying fresh epoxy on the warm wood, the bruised grain really sucked up a lot of resin. While not beautiful, this saturated wood will be super strong.

I let the seal coat of epoxy soak in a bit before applying a patch of fiberglass. The first patch was the size of the sanded area around the damaged area. I didn’t worry about having the patch cover the edges of the old varnish, but I wanted it to cover all the sanded fiberglass.

Some more heat from the heat gun helped the epoxy wet out the glass and soak into the wood. I then built up more layers of fiberglass, using smaller patches as I added them. With the smaller patches closest to the surface, I ensured that the large patch would not be sanded through when I faired everything out.

I added more layers of glass cloth than I figured it would take to fill the divot, that way I wouldn’t have a low spot when I went to sand it all smooth.

After the patch cured, I gave the area a light sanding to knock down the highest spots, then applied a fill coat.

When the fill coat cured, I gave the patches a heavy sanding to get them faired smooth to the surface and then followed with another fill coat to fill any pinholes.

The patch was then sanded smooth, going up to 220 grit sandpaper in preparation for varnish. I sanded the whole boat, deck, and hull, just because it is easier to make the repair disappear if the coat of varnish is continuous over the whole surface. Plus, the boat needed the varnish freshened up.

The whole job took a few hours spread over 4 days, and even though the stain doesn’t match and the bruised wood is a bit dark, you need to look to find the repair.