Blue Peter Dinghy - GRP Repair Work Commences

I thought it would scare me, but actually I prefer seeing the damage more clearly.

So, I spent a couple of hours this morning scratching out the cracks ready for filling with new gelcoat. I discovered in doing so that the fibreglass had been applied overly thinly at the indented section of the cockpit and had torn, so that'll need a fibreglass patch. Thankfully, because it has indented, I figure I can put matting on the outside only and just level the indentation a bit so it should look better after the finish.

The crack on the spine of the boat, I'm tempted to leave it as just a gelcoat repair, it'll depend on how proficient I feel after the initial internal repair.

There are a couple of areas where the hull pieces are separating (exactly as a laser does), so will need to rejoin this. In each case it looks like a poor initial job lead to large air bubbles that then acted as a weak spot.

I had a quick go at lightly scratching the gelcoat where it has gone brown inside the cockpit and discovered it takes it back to blue, so will try to clean this up with some T-cut (car polish) or CIF/Oven cleaner and see if I can rub it out. I can always polish it up afterwards - there'll be a lot of that to do anyway.

Inside the cockpit - looks like the fibreglass got too thin at manufacture.
Around the daggerboard slot, stress cracking only
Around the front of the daggerboard slot, fibreglass repair needed as there were air bubbles under the gelcoat that then flaked off
Around the daggerboard slot, stress cracking only
Minor stress cracks at the transom
Minor stress crack in the cockpit
This is likely a fibreglass repair job really, but I'm hoping that a gelcoat repair will suffice.
simple spider crazing, if a lot of it
simple spider crazing, if a lot of it
simple spider crazing, if a lot of it