Fiberglass Boat Repair

Fiberglass boat repair is confusing to many, however not that hard to get into.

50 years ago boat were made a lot different... they were made of wood. However eventually they started to make them out of a new material, GRP. GRP is glass reinforced plastic. The plastic can be made of many various resins, most commonly polyester resins. In the last 10 years or so boats are now made out of epoxy or lower costing vinylester resins. You will find that instead of fibers of glass, other materials are also being used such as carbon fiber and kevlar.

All of these GRP, fiberglass, boats though can easily be repaired. It seems that fiberglass cannot rot and even with cracks and and holes it can be patched.When fiberglass boats get dull, they can be repainted. When they need changes, they can be modified. The only downfall to a fiberglass boat is the wood core that is sometimes used to create a sandwich construction... so the Achilles heel comes back to be the very technology that we strives to leave behind 50 years ago. Some boats however do not have this wood core and some have used alternative rot free materials like foams and honey comb for core materials.

As to more description of what a boat is made up of,

"Several key components make up the main structure of most boats. The hull is the main structural component of the boat which actually provides buoyancy for the boat. The roughly horizontal, but chambered structures spanning the hull of the boat are referred to as the deck. In a ship there are often several decks, but a boat is unlikely to have more than one, if any at all. Above the deck are the superstructures. The underside of a deck is the deck head.

An enclosed space on a boat is referred to as a cabin. Several structures make up a cabin: the similar but usually lighter structure which spans a raised cabin is a coach-roof. The