You can see that the fiberglass has pulled from the edge of the molding at the rub rail, all the way over to well into the anchor locker. If you ever wondered why on earth Macgregor used such tiny, thin washers underneath the hardware, this goes to show that they hold better than you'd think. I would have thought the immediate area directly around the washers would have pulled out.
In order to even begin patching up the gaping holes where the pulpit mounts ripped out, I first used a couple 3/16"x4"x12" strips of aluminum, glassed a few layers onto the ends, then wetout the mating area underneath the deck where the two ends of the aluminum would rest. I had some some small holes pre-drilled into the aluminum so that I could feed through wire, and attached the other end to the mast, which was hanging overhead. I then pulled and tied it tight so that the aluminum was pulled hard under the deck and let the fiberglass harden. This is not meant to take any load, this is just a surface to start laying fiberglass. The pulpit mount bolts will be bolted through this plate though, so it will be fastened and pulled up when the pulpit is installed. That took care of the wide flat area, but the shape up there is a bit diverse, so I just cut some pieces of wood I had laying around to fit, and did the same thing where needed. Once that was all done, this gave a rough "base" which was close to the original contour of the deck. I started laying glass here and there to try to fill in and level it up near the original fiberglass. Once I was happy, I went to town with the main pieces of fiberglass until it was level with the original. I faired the top (low spots, imperfections) by using the polyester resin, and just mixing in some West system 404 filler which I had on hand. That worked very good to firm up the resin so that it could be worked at the edges & corners so it didn't run. I also used the thickened resin to form the little "hill" which fades down to nothing right before the pulpit foot. It's not perfectly smooth, I could probably have spent more time, add more resin over top of the imperfect spots, and sand it back down to make it virtually unnoticeable that there was a repair, but I think it's good enough, a few layers of thick gelcoat should hide all of that, was my thinking. I got a layer of gelcoat down everywhere the other day. I brushed it on, and unfortunately it didn't level out like it was supposed to. Once I was done sanding (220 grit) in order to blend the high/low spots, there was fiberglass showing in some of the high spots. After speaking with the gelcoat supplier, I'll throw on a thicker 2nd coat and use the roll & tip method this time, with a softer brush. The cheap, somewhat firm brush I used just wasn't able to get it smooth enough.
Here is the progress up to a few days ago, just before gelcoating. The purple marking are from a sharpie. I circled where each later of fiberglass would go, as well as held the fabric on the area and traced/cut.... The deck is surprisingly thing, and the anchor locker sides are paper thin, making it kind of hard to blend the new glass into the old glass without making a "step".
