Humpty Dumpty Would Have Been Fine If They'd Used Fiberglass

If you're a veteran reader of this blog (with the psychological scars to prove it), you will recall our boat was totaled earlier this summer. Like, one week into official summer. I posted a thoroughly horrifying photo of the damage. I post it again for your morbid curiosity:



This is what it is supposed to look like:



Looked bad, but actually was fixable. That's the beauty of fiberglass. Tom (my boyfriend and owner of said boat) decided to have a retired boat builder friend help him fix it, and his oldest son pitched in. They've been working on it daily since pretty much a couple days after the accident. There's enough progress now to be noticeable so I thought I'd share.

First, they removed the broken pieces you see above. That left the gaping cavernous hole you see below:





Then they started fiberglassing the busted pieces back together. They even went back to the scene of the debacle and found another missing piece. The beauty of fiberglass is you can just recreate whatever sections you don't have, and you can use as many old pieces as you can get your hands on to save yourself some work. Since it isn't metal, it doesn't bend or warp. Just breaks.





They eventually reconstructed the broken pieces, and once everything was fitted properly, they were permanently fastened back into place:



So, the next step is to build up the new sections a bit more, add the final layer of resin which will be sanded to a smooth finish and then painted, replace everything in the interior that had to be ripped out to get down to the fiberglass on the inside, and then do little stuff like replace railings and hardware, and clean it. Probably another week, and it should be just fine. Hopefully it will be seaworthy before my staycation is over. My next photo will hopefully be indistinguishable from the second photo above.

What a weird summer it's been.