There was a painted section on the bottom of the hull that appeared "flat" - meaning it didn't follow the contour of the surrounding fiberglass. It just looked like a shoddy repair to me and I couldn't live with that.

I sanded the paint off the patch and surrounding area and built up the area with epoxy resin and four layers of 1708 until the contour of the patch matched the surrounding area of the hull. The white spots are thickened eopxy under the glass, that I used to fill voids in the old repair (which will be removed from the top in the next step).

Once exterior repairs to the hull were made, three layers of Pettit epoxy primer were applied as a barrier coat. What appears to be dark blue paint in this photo is the same gray primer, just in shadow.

Two layers of Pettit Vivid bottom paint were applied over the primer coats. The original brass keel guard was removed, the screw holes were drilled out and filled with thickened epoxy, then the keel guard was re-installed. The newly applied bottom paint was sanded away where a new 8' KeelGuard would go, and it was installed over the original keel guard.

I wasn't comfortable with what might be on the other side of that patch in the hull so that area will be opened up and removed. I also went over the floor with a moisture meter.

Sure enough I found wet rotted core directly above the patch on the hull. Whoever did the repair just fiberglassed over core damage and called it good!

After I removed some wet rotted balsa core I discovered they had actually removed some of the damaged core and squirted in some of that expanding foam insulation to "repair" the damage! (Note that I had to remove some of the cabin bulwark to give access to the repair area.)

More core and old foam repair have been removed, exposing the original shoddy fiberglass repair, which now has four new layers of fiberglass underneath it.

Here I've removed the original fiberglass patch and sanded down to the epoxy layers I laid from the bottom. The area has been painted with epoxy resin in preparation for new layers of fiberglass to go on top. Also note at this point I pulled the entire floor up because I found unacceptably high moisture readings everywhere. The remainder of the balsa core appeared sound and didn't feel wet. After just 24 hours the moisture meter read 0% moisture everywhere.

Five more layers of 1708 and epoxy resin and fiberglass repair is finished.

New balsa core in place. Because the fiberglass under the core is now so much thinker, I had to sand down the bottom of the new core so that it would fit the coutour of the patch.

Section of bulkhead has been replaced. The light green substance is fairing compound that was laid over the fiberglass. Next up, lay down a new fiberglass top skin on the cabin floor! *