Thanks to Airborne I had an extra 5.2 hull to practice on before I set to work my my boat. I removed the front deck and you can see how it went. Pretty well actually, and the old deck is in perfect shape so I can reuse it if I manage to mess up one of mine.

Here are a few things I learned in the process.

-I thought I would want the thinnest paint scraper around ,but I found out that you had no control over it and it ended up causing more trouble, so we upgraded to a heavy knife with a pretty thick blade. It work very well and the cleanest areas are the knife areas.
-We worked as a team to do it, after I got the knife under the deck I would slowly work it down and my friend would use the butter knife to hold the deck up to make sure I stayed between the deck and the actual hull.

thanks for the pics gree, we older nacra owners will be following your work with interest, (you must just about be ready to set up as a vintage nacra parts dealer and restorer)

how are the hull stringers, still bonded to the hull all the way along? (esp. in that high stress area just forward of the main beam)

know you are well read on the repair options but for what it's worth if there is any stringer delamination you could

-clean the area with acetone, (polyester resin frp thinner)

-with the hull vertical work in some epoxy resin at the top and gravity run it down until it appears below the stringer, (epoxy as it sticks better to polyester than polyester does)

- roll hull flat, cover epoxied area with plastic food wrap and then leave a heavy weight on that to force stringer back into contact with hull

- after it has cured 90%, (for better chemical bond) add an overlapping patch of cut woven cloth, cut so that fibers are "X" patterned

- then another, slightly bigger, patch on that

- and then, if you wanted the boat to keep on sailing long after you were gone, a new bulkhead made of outdoor grade 5mm plywood centered on the repaired area......

Eric, thanks for all the advice I plan to add two more bulkheads to both hulls in front of the main beam. Also I will add another stringer in the high stress area.

But, my hulls had nothing broke loose, but airborne's old hull had lots of stringers broke loose. Now that I have removed the decks I a am realizing that my boat was pretty sound inside, but that is okay. It will be nice to have the added confidence in the hulls.

Here is a view inside the hulls looking forward, as you can see things are all attached and solid.

Here are some more pictures, this is the knife I used, I would simpley tap it under the deck and then tap it along the hull.

Oh and for future reference don't hit your knuckles with the hammer.....you bleed as this picture shows.

Here is a bulkhead of airbornes, you can see that it is broke loose from the side.

do you think this was from water intrusion or the combination of being old and sailed hard?

I would say that it was from stress, maybe even an impact, because the bulkhead had a crack running almost from the bottom to the top where it is seperated from the hull.

If Airbornes other hull that broke in half had the same problem that would probably explain the sudden failure of his hull.

I will be posting pictures almost every day about the repairs I am doing.

Great shots, thanks.

great to know that your stringers and bulkheads are ok

(means mine probably are too:-)

have you thought of repairing airbourne's old hull, or is it too badly delam'ed and holed

oh, it is repairable. Would it ever look the same...no, useable yeah.

I am going to keep it around and if I am bored some night I might give it a go.

I know my boat was raced hard for a while, so if it is okay I would expect yours to be okay also, but that probably isn't the best chain of thoughts. But you shouldn't be in any huge waves on your small lake.