Re-taping keel band

Thanks Gernot and David for the tips.

I'm certainly hoping to get brutal on the hull and clear back previous coats of paint, just not right now. I am reading up a lot on epoxy methods and fillers. I think I'll be able to make a reasonable fix to get her watertight and last the summer.

When I do undertake a full strip-back and re-tape the keel band fully, is it worth stripping the other hull tapes if they're looking ok at the moment? Any harm done by replacing them with fresh tape and epoxy, or best left well alone?

Matti

Just a quick update for those with similar problems. The epoxy and filler worked a treat; made a buttery consistency as advised, quickly applied during one of those hot days in late June and then sanded down and given a fresh coat of paint after a week or so curing. Went for the boat's first sail in about 15 years, no detectable ingress around centreboard slot.

After four hours on the water about an eggcupful made it into the aft tank from a small split in the paint near the skeg. I think this indicates that even where the paint wasn't badly cracked as in the first picture, the original tapes are not stopping water from working its way through. So I'll strip back to have a closer look at all of them over winter.

Will look out for future videos, David. They're an excellent resource and one of the first things I did was add a topping lift. Am working on plans for a camping setup...

A long term update to Poppy's progress. Will be a long post, but it’s useful to have info on repairs for others to find.

She went into storage in a rented garage last November where the stripping back began. Definitely worth doing not only to inspect the 50 year old polyester resin and tape, but also to discover and assess previous damage and repairs. Tape found to be brittle along keel and some of the other hull seams, so all was removed. Found previous hull punctures in forward tank and cockpit floor, both had been fixed with copious amounts of green resin and glass-fibre matting for the larger hole. Weight of stripped paint from the hull alone was over 4kg.

Aimed to get down to bare wood where possible, but the primer was pretty tough on the hull. Also stripped insides of old varnish revealing a nice lighter colour of the wood underneath.

Other repairs:
A bung had been installed in one of the floor battens for draining, but I didn’t trust it (and it not being flush with the floor made it useless for draining). Carved a ply patch from one of the inspection cover cutouts and epoxied in place. Bought two new floor battens to strengthen floor/hull and used a small offcut to plug hole in existing batten. Not an invisible repair, but does the job.

The floor around the daggerboard case was covered in white resin and extra tape to fix old leaks. This was removed and the wood underneath seemed to be sound, so no new tape used on the inner, but care taken to tape the slot on the keel slide.

In replacing the chewed up old bronze screws of the keel band, the new screws protruded into the cockpit here and there. They were the same length as the old ones, so imagine this happens a lot. I couldn’t find any guidance about this, so just added some thickened epoxy on top of the point of each screw to seal and taped over the top once it had set. I wasn’t able to add any along the keel line on the inside of the front tank, but adding epoxy when screwing down seems to have sealed well enough.

Foot rest was unscrewed, a draining hole cut out in the middle, screw holes filled and epoxied back down.

Most of the deck tapes were sound, except for where the transom meets the rear deck, so that strip was replaced.

To finish:
International Compass varnish chosen for its slightly lighter colour. Snow White again used for the hull and initially I had plans for something red too, to replace the red go-faster-stripe and reflect the name. Ran out of time in the end, so hull is all white for now.

Original sails were sent back to Jeckell’s for replacement of cringle grommets, patching a hole, adding openings to the batten pockets and adding reefing to the main. They no longer stock the original Mirror red colour, but I quite like the darker contrast.

Only managed a few days this summer due to work robbing me of free time, but had an end of season sail on Sunday which was beautiful. No more leaking into the stern tank and no new leaks anywhere else.

Poppy had a lovely couple of years between 2022 and 2024, sailing around Whitstable Bay after her refurbishment. Then an exciting but unfortunate outing this summer.

We sailed her to the Isle of Sheppey with a picnic. What should have been a brisk but simple sail home turned into us being trapped on a lea shore between two groynes (breakwaters). The wind strengthened and changed direction so we simply couldn't get off the beach. With the tide rising, we lifted her over the concrete sea wall with the help of some strangers.

We packed her down, turned her over and nestled her on the landward side of the sea wall. The next day I hired a van to collect her (we don't own a road trailer or car). Unfortunately, the county council had been very keen and had been around early to dispose of rubbish. Some nearby café owners had seen the boat and the workers and saved her from being taken away. They moved her from the sea wall to the café visible in the far left of the photo. Sadly they did this by dragging her across the car park, resulting in some deep gouges and holes appearing in the hull.

So, Poppy is back in a garage again and work is starting on repairs. Happily the punctures don't extend into any inaccessible areas. A patch may be required on the side tank under the bilge piece (which will be replaced) but it's right next to the inspection hatch, so should be simple.

I'm making my cuts along the floor battens to hide the joins and reinforce them, and the edges will be chamfered in the normal way. The photos show the first steps. I was able to cut away the ply from the centreboard case and the floor batten by using a chisel for the top layers and then a Dremel with a sanding attachment to carefully grind away the last layer of ply, stopping when I saw adhesive. Fresh ply waits in the background.

What fun. Further updates to come.