Repairing a Daggerboard

[tphoward]

Hi all,

I got some good advice on how to recondition an old beat up daggerboard for my NACRA 5.5. We hit a stump a few weeks ago which made the repair necessary.

I cleaned out the chipped pieces and part of the stump still wedged in the fiberglass.

Here are some pics of the damage before the repair was started.

[tphoward]

I took wax paper and taped it to the back side for the daggerboard, then I used a plastic putty knife to mix and apply, Marine Tex epoxy, which I read is the best for this type of repair.

Then I rolled the wax paper over the edge and taped that side also. I applied some clamps to squeeze the board back together.

This took about 30 minutes once I was set up and did it all while watching tv.

The next morning I pulled off the clamps, tape and paper and presto the daggerboard looked great. It needed a little sanding but I was very, very please with the results.

All in all, I probably spent $20 in materials (Marine Tex, putty knives, 3 clamps) and about 2.0 hours in prep and putting the epoxy on. I figured that saved me about $400 in repairs.

Very cool!! Now I get to go see how it performs in the water!