Case study: Lucky Tarte

The Jeaneau Sun Odyssey 42' Lucky Tarte had a nasty collision with a submerged rock when she was travelling at high speed after finishing the Three Peaks race in Scotland. The vessel sustained damage to the main stiffening web around the keel, the hull laminate around the keel, the base of the keel and the rudder.

There was a large area of gel coat crazing in a 'U' shape around the back edge of the keel. The keel was removed so this area could properly inspected. The antifouling and gelcoat was ground away to expose the laminate in the areas of crazing.

As can be seen in the following images there was no delamination this close to the gelcoat. Although the laminate at the back edge of the keel had cracked right through; this area took the brunt of the impact from the lever force of the keel hitting the rock. The images also show the area being faired in with polyester gelcoat.

Throughout the repair Lucky Tarte was supported on the aft pads (positioned under a bulkhead) of the boat mover to keep the load off the damaged area thus not changing the shape.

Shown opposite the interior was striped down where necessary where the damage was assessed.

The interior was masked up and tented to keep the boat clean. Most of the damage to the stiffeners and delaminate was directly above and to the right of the keel. The damage laminate was ground away. The bonding flanges were cut away at the base of the stiffeners to allow further inspection of the hull laminate and to insure there was no further delamination under the stiffeners themselves. It was also essential to cut away the flanges to properly glass in the stiffeners.

The stiffener located at the trailing edge of the keel took the brunt of impact and as a result had sheared in two places. There was also some delamination under this stiffener. Therefore we cut out this stiffener and made a mould from it to fabricate a new one with the same laminate spec, size and shape. The image opposite shows the majority of grinding/ prep work.

The images opposite show the repair after the flanges have been filleted with glass reinforced bonding filler and tabbed in with 6 layers of chopped strand mat and biaxial fibres. After that the floors in between the stiffeners were glassed in with 3 layers of 4” oversized fibreglass panels. Also show is the new stiffener after it was glassed back in.

Shown opposite is the finished repair after flow coating.