A month ago my port ama suffered some cracks while on a practice sail for the NCC. I was able to do a temporary jury rig to finish the trip but needed a permanent repair before the ama could be used again.
To repair, I first ground out the cracks and filled with an epoxy colloidal silica mixture to provide a smooth surface for the subsequent steps. I then sanded off a large area of the gel-coat in preparation to lay down some extra fiberglass layers. I did this to both amas since whatever I did to the broken ama, I also did to the other one as well. I didn’t quite sand all the way down the fiberglass, but I did remove the shiny outer layer of the gel coat.
I next added and wetted down a small piece of fiberglass with an opening cut out for the wing connection to each ama. The line around the piece is from the felt-tip marker used to indicate where to cut the fiberglass. Hopefully a later painting step will cover this up.
Then I added a large piece of fiberglass over the entire area.
And proceeded to start to wet it out. I made some cuts at the center of the wing connection so it wraps down inside the connection.
After finishing wetting out, I added a piece of pealPly over the entire area. Using PealPly gives a better finish without using as much total epoxy.
Since pealPly won’t conform to strange curves, I had to make a number of slits up around the wing connection area.
After the epoxy started to gel-up, I cut off some of the excess and then temporarily made the connection with the wing to ensure that there was a good fit. I had pre-treated the wing with mold-release. I just kept the connection in place for a couple of minutes.
Then I finished removing the excess material and after it firmed up a bit more, the pealPly.
The last step after the epoxy cures will be to sand out any imperfections and coat with yellow-tinted gel-coat. I’ll post an edit to this post after I paint it.