Ouch - stem handle damage

[Roger]

OK - the outboard motor is at the shop, but a nice breeze has come up and I want to go sailing. The solution, try and tack out of the marina. Almost made it with the wind on the nose at the marina entrance. Probably not a great idea, but I must get points for effort, right?

To cut a long story short - stem meets sea wall at 2 knots. The damage is localised to the handle but it looks terrible (see picture link below). My plan is to run unthickened epoxy down into the delaminations and then clamp tightly to close up the damage. Then rebuild the outer damage layers and seal with thickened (404) epoxy. Note that the plans say not to glass the handles, and this boat is to plan (with no glass on the handles).

Does my plan sound OK - has anyone had prior experience with this sort of damage?

Thanks,

Roger

 

 

 

[Ann and Neville Clement]

Ouch, indeed.  I do give credit for effort though.  Also, it was better to hit the wall than to hit the neighboring boats.

Here's what I would do.  First dry it out completely.  Then you can get a nightmarish little item at the kitchen store which is called a flavor inhancer and it is just a giant needle and syringe that can be filled with unthickened epoxy and pushed down into all of the many little cracks so the glue will squirt in there.  Then you can thicken it a bit and squirt some more in there, and finally thicken it like ketchup and squirt it again deep in there.  Then clamp it but not too terribly tight because the glue will be stronger than the ply, as you know.  If it were me, I would then maybe get some fiberglass and wrap it just so you could be sure the wet did not get in and run down the stem.  But likely somebody else will have a better idea of what to do.  It is not the end of the world, for sure.   

[Roger]

Syringe - yes, great idea. Thanks.

Roger

[kim whitmyre]

Depending on how skilled you are with a backsaw/dozuki saw and a sharp chisel, you might cut the stem back a bit vertically, thus creating nice new shoulders to glue new stock on to; then reshape to pre-existing form. You might still avail yourself of the flavor injector, if any of the splits are deep.

Keep your lunch hook at the ready next time! ;-)

[Ann and Neville Clement]

It might be fun to start an OOPSIE confessions site some time.  We would sure have a few stories.... the only way to prevent Oopsies is to keep the boat tied up.

[Marty Peters]

At least you were in a wharram and not a fantastic plastic boat which I think would be harder to repair.
I would repair the damage by grinding all the damaged ply back with a 24 grit sanding disc until you are back to good ply and then either adding some new wood or filling with epoxy and silica and shaping until you have the profile you want.

Marty