Need to do a temporary fix, does anyone know if epoxy will adhere to gelcoat? will of course rough up area and clean before applying epoxy, but will the epoxy stay, at least for a week while I sail

Turbo

Yes, no problem, be a b*tch to remove though!

Thanks for the feedback guys, I am aware of the basic law, "Epoxy will adhere to Poly, but Poly will not adhere to Epoxy", I was not too sure what gelcoat was. The situation here is that I have a H16 rented for the 12 days I'm staying at Palm Beach Shores, the port hull has a split in the outer skin on the bow about 6" below the deck, water was pouring in through the split and filling the hull. The rental people were dragging their b**ts, so I went the cheap route, acetone to clean up the hulls and a duct tape patch, worked amazingly well, sailed almost the entire day with no leak, even when burying the hull at speed.

Turbohobo

Ah, I missed the 'Temporary' statement above. In that case epoxy the duct tape to the hull along with any shells you can gather on the beach!! They shouldn't be renting out broken boats!!!!

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Dave Bonin
1981 Nacra 5.2 "Lucile"
1986 Nacra 5.7 "Belle"
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
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It will stick fine Turbo. I fixed a little ding on my 5.7, did exactly as you mentioned for prep.
I should have taped around it so no epoxy went anywhere but the ding. It stuck like it was part of the boat. When I went to touch up the gel coat last week I had to sand all the excess epoxy away, right down to original gel coat.
Another "tape" that is 100% waterproof is the wide aluminum duct tape, for sealing heating/cooling ducts. It sticks fiercly to anything that is clean, won't deteriorate with a season of tropical sun, & flexes easily. It's weakness is that it won't take much abrasion, it is pretty soft, & it does cost more than regular duct (duck) tape.

--
Hobie 18 Magnum
Dart 15
Mystere 6.0XL Sold Was a handful solo
Nacra 5.7
Nacra 5.0
Bombardier Invitation (Now officially DEAD)
Various other Dock cluttering WaterCrap
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Ha! did not waste my money on epoxy, bought the acetone and duct tape, cleaned area exceptionally clean, stuffed plastic shopping bag in the 4" split in outer skin, covered it with duct tape layed up in layers and viola! went sailing.

Turbo