Painting The Stray Goat

This entry is part 3 of 7 in the series Goat Island Skiff Restoration

With the runners on the bottom replaced, there was still a bit more work to be done before painting the Goat Island Skiff Julie B.

The problem that concerned me most was the daggerboard trunk, where I could see some pretty large gaps in the epoxy filler in a few places. As shown in the picture at right, there was also a pretty good sized nick in the aft end of the trunk, apparently from running aground with the board down.

The forward end had similar gaps.

The aft end of the trunk after some sanding.

And one of the gaps along the side of the trunk after sanding.

It's more than likely that I'll run aground with the board down at least once or twice. A Goat Island Skiff owner on Facebook has an ingenious answer involving padding the trunk with outdoor carpet to guard against such events and to provide a bit of friction that keeps the board at any level where it is set. I plan to incorporate that solution but I thought a bit of extra protection was in order. When I filled the gaps with thickened epoxy I put on a couple of small bits of fiberglass too.

I'm unlikely to run aground while going backward so the front end of the trunk just got painted with epoxy and then some thickened epoxy pushed into the gaps.

The bottom of the boat had a pretty nasty scratch that actually gouged out a bit of the plywood in a couple of places.

The damaged area after a bit of light grinding.

I painted the area with epoxy and filled the gaps with epoxy that was thickened with structural filler. The filler left some high spots so I filed it down a bit before sanding and painting but the repair is still very visible now that it's painted. But it's on the bottom of the boat so I figure it's just a bit of extra protection against future beaching damage.