Repairing the Starboard Hull: Paikea’s Crack Fix in Barcelona
With the hull crack confirmed and the extent of it clear, it was time to actually fix it — and, as it turned out, a genuinely full family day on the hard.
Splitting the Work
The crack ran from the stateroom all the way in under the floor, so getting proper access meant pulling that floor panel out first — a solid chunk of carbon Nomex, light enough that it came out easily, weighing in at 12kg once we got it on the scale. With that floor open, Shayne and I could get down into the crack itself to repair it properly, while the boys took on getting the hull’s antifoul and barnacle growth off — a genuinely big job in its own right, sanding down through old antifoul and paint with 120 grit, careful not to sand straight through the primer underneath.
Fixing the Crack
The repair itself is straightforward once you break it down, and it’s worth explaining why we made the choices we did. Paikea’s a fibreglass boat built with polyester resin, so the repair uses the same — there’s no reason to reach for carbon fibre here. Matching the original construction is the right call, not a compromise.
The first step was filling the crack itself with a cabosil-thickened resin mix — essentially a bog putty, worked into the gap until it’s smooth enough to laminate over cleanly. From there, two layers of 600g fibreglass cloth went over the repair, staggered so the smaller layer sits under the larger one — the same staggering technique we’ve mentioned in other repairs, since it gives a smoother structural transition rather than a hard edge where the laminate steps up. No peel ply on this one; it goes straight to a flow coat once the lamination’s cured.
Why the Crack Kept Happening
Behind the repaired section, there’d originally been a piece of plywood that was never actually glued in — and tapping along the outside of the hull, the way you would on any haul-out, gave it away: it sounded hollow, almost structural, in a spot that shouldn’t have. That’s very likely part of why this crack kept reopening in the first place. The new laminate stiffens that section properly, so if load ever gets put down in that same spot again, it’s got something solid underneath it rather than an unglued piece of ply doing very little.
By the end of the day, the repair was laminated and ready for its flow coat, the hull was well on its way to bare, prepped surface, and everyone — kids included — had put in a genuinely long shift getting there.
Follow the rest of Paikea’s interior transformation on the Paikea’s Refit page.