FIBERGLASSING 101

With the right safety precautions and a bit of practice, sailors can tackle small projects and repairs themselves.

- BEHAN GIFFORD AND JAMIE GIFFORD

Having fiberglassing skills is a powerful do-it-yourself tool for customizing and repairing sailboats. Recent examples of fiberglass work we've done on our Stevens 47, Totem, include creating a custom graywater tank, building the new swim steps into our reverse transom, and filling in holes from decommissioned through-hulls.

And occasionally, fiberglassing skills fill a more critical need: saving a boat.

A squall raged in the dark over Totem's Indian Ocean anchorage when Jamie heard a plea for help over the VHF radio. One of the cruising boats within the uninhabited atoll had gone against a reef.

We were in Salomon Atoll, the British Indian Ocean Territory of Chagos. Strained by high winds, the boat's mooring line chafed through on the sharp edges of a coral head. Far from any help or official options for rescue, a handful of crews rallied to aid the distressed Wauquiez 48 Pipistrelle, and prevent it from becoming a wreck in this pristine, remote location.

After the vessel was kedged to safety, assessment revealed that the hull and keel had only superficial scratches, but the prop shaft was bent and the rudder severely damaged. For Pipistrelle to sail to the nearest haulout facility in the Seychelles, some 1,200 nautical miles away, the large chunk missing from the leading edge of the rudder needed significant fiberglass repair. Without fiberglassing materials and know-how, the crew would have to use the wreck-removal insurance that we all needed for a permit to the territory.

The band of cruisers pooled their knowledge and resources to tackle the repair.

Materials were in adequate supply except for one key part: the fiberglass.

On a remote, tropical, uninhabited coconut island, what could possibly substitute for glass fibers to combine with resin to form a structural composite? Coconut fibers, of course!