Category Archives: Boat Repair

Fiberglass Repair on a Yamaha WaveRunner

By Jordan Teddleton

I wanted to purchase a personal watercraft so I’d be able to join my friends at the local lake for some fun in the sin this summer. Like most people on a budget, I searched Craigslist for the best deal. I needed something low maintenance, so a WaveRunner™ felt like a good fit. After a week of looking, I found a 2004 Yamaha GP1300r that appeared to be in decent shape; however, a strangely placed sticker on the top port side turned out to be covering a painful past. Continue reading →

Aluminum Hinge Repair

By Gary Harrison

I made a difficult rear-hatch repair on my 2007 aluminum SeaArk 1872 MVJT (modified V-jet tunnel) center console using WEST SYSTEM G/flex Epoxy.

The year before I bought it, my SeaArk center console had undergone a complete rebuild. The entire inside of the boat was sprayed with Line-X® Protective Coating, which makes clean-up super easy but prohibits any additional welding to the aluminum.

Continue reading →

Mini Skeeter

By Randy Rogoski

There is only one solution that comes from the ache of seeing iceboats ripping around on Mona Lake all your life: give in and buy one. If the thrill doesn’t quite meet expectations, build one that will be faster.

Pat Filius has lived 20 years on a now-flooded celery flat fed by Black Creek, the main tributary of Mona Lake in Norton, Michigan. In 2014 he bought his first iceboat for $400. Sailing it just once was enough to convince him that he wanted a faster boat. Continue reading →

Triple Threat, 38 years old and counting

A case study in remediating gelcoat blisters

By Bruce Niederer — GBI Technical Advisor

My father, rest his soul, and I bought Triple Threat together sometime in the mid-’80s. We raced our ’81 Pearson Flyer hard together for the next 15 or so years, including 12 Port Huron to Mac races. The purchase date is lost to history, but the details surrounding how many times the boat needed a new bottom—meaning a new epoxy barrier coat—are forever etched in my psyche. It’s all the sanding that accompanies repairing gelcoat blisters that has addled my IPA soaked cranium. One just doesn’t forget those seemingly endless hours of self-imposed torture. Continue reading →

Online Forums are the Bane of my Existence

An Epic Rant

My humorous take on the Social Media disasters called Technical Forums

By Bruce Niederer — GBI Technical Advisor

I’ve answered a lot of phone calls and e-mails in my 23 years here at Gougeon Brothers, Inc. Many of the questions are repetitive—that’s the nature of helping customers both new and old to be successful. Some are interesting—a few are downright fascinating. But I know it’s gonna be one of those calls when the first thing I hear is “I was reading in this forum last night about…”

DOH! (I try not to slap my forehead loud enough to be heard on my headset.) Continue reading →

Fiberglass Repair on a Yamaha WaveRunner

By Jordan Teddleton

I wanted to purchase a personal watercraft so I’d be able to join my friends at the local lake for some fun in the sun this summer. Like most people on a budget, I searched Craigslist for the best deal. I needed something low maintenance, so a WaveRunner™ felt like a good fit. After a week of looking, I found a 2004 Yamaha GP1300r that appeared to be in decent shape; however, a strangely placed sticker on the top port side turned out to be covering a painful past. Continue reading →

Aluminum Boat Repairs

By Greg Bull — GBI Technical Advisor

After developing the Aluminum Boat Repair Kit we have had calls from customers saying they have a larger boat and cannot easily turn it over as recommended to work on the seams and rivets. They ask “will this kit still work on my boat?” The answer is, yes, it will. It will be a little messier but will work the same way upside down or right side up. Continue reading →

Obsessing About Obsession

A Wooden Dory Makeover

By Greg Hatten

In the past few years my river dory, Obsession, has traveled a thousand rocky river miles in all kinds of weather, dodged a million rocks (and hit more than a few) while running rivers in Yellowstone, Tetons, Olympic, Rocky Mountain, Rainier and a dozen other National Parks.

This dory has run backward through a rapid on the Rogue River, run sideways through a rapid on the McKenzie River, and slammed into a wall at Mule Creek Canyon on the Rogue River so hard that it split a rib, shattered an oarlock, and was put out of commission for a month. Continue reading →

Large Wooden Vessel Repair

By Tom Pawlak — GBI Technical Advisor

In the spring of 2016, several US Coast Guard vessel inspection officers from the east coast attended our 2-day Professional Fiberglass Boat Repair Workshop. Afterward, they asked if we would consider creating a document that they could hand out to commercial boat owners, captains and vessel reps that would provide guidelines for proper use of WEST SYSTEM products for repairing and maintaining larger wooden vessels subject to Coast Guard inspections. They were having an increasingly difficult time because a number of commercial boat operators were repairing their own vessels using techniques that caused concern. The reasons given for using these questionable procedures vary from trying to save some money to the short supply of qualified wooden vessel shipwrights who could complete work in a reasonable amount of time. To make their case that their repairs were appropriate, some operators handed the Coast Guard Inspection Officers the WEST SYSTEM Wooden Boat Restoration & Repair manual. Unfortunately, some were cherry picking information and techniques intended for repairing smaller recreational wooden craft, and not following all of the recommended procedures for avoiding problems. Continue reading →

Hot Canary Becomes Vivacious

By Alex Boelkins

For readers of Epoxyworks, the name Hot Canary should ring a bell. Constructed in 2011 by an employee team at Gougeon Brothers, Inc., she was built as a winning platform for the Everglades Challenge. Having completed several of these self-supported, expedition races, and with the sad passing of Jan Gougeon, the highly customized i550 Hot Canary was listed for sale, ready for new adventures. Continue reading →