Onderwerp: [English] - Spanker Leak :-(

Hello!

Happy new year - i hope you all get a beer full 2017

As you can see, my spanker has some gaps on the stern .. i'm thinking if I could fix this myself (I'm not much of a carpenter). Would scrapping the "gap" , making sure nothing is rotten (i'm pretty sure is not) and filling it up with some putty or resin is ok?

Does this happens because of the winter/summer temperatures changes and the way wood expands and contracts?



Any other ideas on how to deal with this pretty much appreciated

Regards
Esteban

What you show us is not the stern but the bow of the Spanker as far I can see.
There are more ways to Rome but you can repair this with two part epoxy resin mixed with wood dust from the sanding machine. Make it as thick as peanut butter.
But first you've to scrape and sand away all paint, and remove all rotten wood so only clean healthy wood remains.
Hopefully you end up with a boat after removing the rotten wood (could not resist the joke).
But if, then you could fill up the gap with the epoxy / wood dust mixture.
After curing this will sand quite well.
Eventually you can make it smoother with epoxy putty.
If you want to go for 100% sure leak free you can think about laminating glassfibre over the bow though this is not easy (need to be airbubble free else better don't laminate).
There is quite some information about working with wood and epoxy on the internet, e.g. the Gougeon brothers have written a book about it which is free available in PDF.

Freek

Thank you Freek!
Will try your advice and hopefully i wont find that much rotten wood!!

Esteban

As you can see after scrapping is evident the keel is not ok, the joint in between the keel and the plywood is also not fine, there is 1mm gap. what you think about this proposal? i'm not really skilled in wood so i prefer to keep things simple..but perhaps this will break apart in one month?



strange thing is from the inside i did not notice any rotten at all - im not sure how it got like this!

Woods do rot, and plywood can rot faster than anything else. Also, with plywood, one layer can rot away and other be intact: that's probably why you didn't spot this from inside.
To really repair this is a major operation, I'm afraid. You could postpone this by packing the rump with polyester or epoxy, and get another few years of pleasure out of the boat. Depending on your kind of sailing and home waters, that could be done cheap.
Repairing plywood that's already rotten is a no-go: soon it wil rot away adjacent to your repair, even if you think the wood there is sound. Been there, done that, didn't like it.