Fiberglassing the Mariner

I spent the day grinding out a bit more in the target areas and then laying glass. The cracked area on the starboard side where a bunk had pressed in turned out to be much larger than I realized. The area had multiple weak points, damaged areas, and was completely waterlogged. I ground out all the bad glass tapering the edges back and dried it out as best as I could before glassing over the hole. I ended up with 7 layers of thick glass matting which I estimated to be about the thickness of the original hull.

I was not able to add glass on the inside at this time as I have not cut into the berths yet. It also looked like the cracked area was directly beneath the corner of one of the berths because I was able to see the vertical end of a piece of plywood right behind it. The plywood, though waterlogged, appeared to be in good condition. My hope is that this will eventually dry out? I have drilled through the hull and will be adding a bronze garboard drain so even if I do get more water in the winter, at least it will not collect. Perhaps I will be able to add more glass from the inside when I start exploring the insides of the quarter berths.

As soon as I took a grinder to the damaged area at the front of the CB trunk (where I thought it had been hit) the fiberglass turned out to be extremely weak and I noticed signs of a previous repair with a hard white substance. I ground out everything and added glass matting and then biaxial on top. I did not get to building it up to the original shape and perhaps will come back to that. I then glass along the very corner of the CB trunk all the way round. I am not sure this really added all that much strength as I only added one layer of fabric, but I figure it's better than nothing. My hope is that with epoxy paint, the boat will at the least be considerably more watertight than before.

My next task will be removing the deck fittings and rebedding everything in an attempt to keep out rainwater. I'd love to paint the deck as well, but am not sure about what to do with the hairline cracking. Maybe I will leave that for another time.

Last but not least, I believe that the majority of the water that got into the boat over the winter got in at the low points of the hull/deck joint as the boat was fairly well covered over the winter and still took on a couple of inches of water. My thinking is that those areas would be where any ingress of water would collect. I wonder if there is a recommended way of sealing these that doesn't involve removing the riveted section. I am considering caulking the inside with something like 3M 5200.

I am really looking forward to sanding, painting, and getting this thing back in the water.