Part of the veneer is delaminating. Water had got in before we bought the boat. This is the first hull fix.
I looks like water got in to this part of the veneer sometime ago. The board underneath is sound, so we will cut into the laminate,, and put some glue under the laminate and see if we can fix it.
One of the recent jobs on Champagne was repairing a small area of delamination on the bow. Water had found its way beneath the varnish and into the wood, causing the surface laminate to swell and lift away from the layer underneath.
Although the affected area was small, the raised wood needed securing. Our approach was to introduce marine adhesive beneath the lifted laminate, then press it back into its original position.
We carefully made a small incision through the surface laminate, keeping the cut shallow so that it only passed through the layer we needed to lift. This gave us access beneath the delaminated section without removing it altogether. We then carefully worked marine adhesive underneath the raised wood. The aim was to bond the existing laminate back down while preserving as much of the original surface as possible.
The next challenge was holding the laminate firmly against the curved bow while the adhesive set.Paul cut pieces of wood to fit the shape of the hull. These provided shaped supports through which we could apply pressure to the repair. We then placed heavy diving weights on top, pressing the lifted laminate back down and holding it in position.The shaped pieces of wood were particularly useful: they helped spread the load across the repair rather than concentrating all the pressure on one small spot.
Once the adhesive had set and we removed the weights and wooden supports, the laminate had bonded well and was held back down against the underlying surface.For this small, localised patch, the repair proved quite straightforward. We were able to retain the existing laminate rather than cut out and replace the affected section.The remaining finishing work is to restore the protective varnish coating, paying particular attention to the incision and any damaged edges where water might enter again.It was a satisfying little job on Champagne—and a good example of how carefully shaped pieces of wood and some suitably heavy weights can make an awkward repair much easier.
