The good news is I've got a functional Wave. The bad news is that it isn't perfect. The only mistake I made in my repair efforts was drilling a hole to try pulling with. Pressurizing the hull, heat and beating did quite a bit. I then got a 5" contoured screw-in port and cut a hole just in front of the forward beam. That's when I found out that there's 3/8" foam behind the skin. I used a little bottle type hydraulic jack to push the dents out of the deck and beat/pried the deck to keel crease out as best I could. The foam backing had cracked so it wouldn't allow things to go all the way back together. If I decide to try more repairs I'll probably try melting the foam but for now I'm sailing. I also added the Hobie compression tube between the bows. The boat seems to sail fine. It'd been in the water behind my house until yesterday when I took it out due to Katrina. It was blowing 15~20 or better down the lake as I sailed it down to the ramp. I've only sailed it 4 or 5 times and this was lots more wind than we've had. What a hoot! I'm old and conservative (comes with age and no health insurance)but tentatively tried to push the boat and maybe fly a hull. About the time I got going well I hit something that kicked up both rudders (the wind was blowing the water out of the lake pretty quickly) so rather than crash I went in. I did bury the bent bow pretty good and it didn't seem to move. Perfect 4 point landing on the boat ramp. Good thing the water was so low and the ramp all slimey. I've attached an after picture to compare with the before. The light is a little flat as the creases are not quite as well defined as they really are. In any case the keel is straight, the bows square to the beam and it sails fine. Sorry, this is a little long. Hopefully something I've said will aid someone else.
Tom

Attached Files
56350-bentbow2.JPG (235 downloads)