When making my canoe storage area a few years back, I thought "It's not ideal, but a tree would have to fall in a very specific way to impact my boats." I'm old enough to know what happens when you tempt the universe like that, but apparently not smart enough to heed that knowledge. So, of course, a tree fell in a very specific way during a recent windstorm, and it of course hit my SRT, the boat I'm most partial to (2 comeuppances for the price of 1!).
The good news - I don't think it's that bad (though I could certainly be wrong, given how much I don't know). In any case, it unquestionably could have been far worse. The bad news - I have no experience working with fiberglass, gel coat, etc. I think that all of the impacted areas should probably be patched, both inside and out - just looking for some feedback from people who actually have experience. Should I repair this myself, or seek out a professional? I won't be attempting repair until spring (unless not repairing quickly is a bad idea), and I do have plenty of experience working with epoxy and epoxy-like materials so I'm confident that I can do an adequate job with some reading and experimenting. I'm less confident that I can do an aesthetically pleasing job, especially with gel coat repair, but aesthetics are pretty dang low on my priority list, as you can probably tell by how many non-tree related scratches I've put on this hull in less than a year.
In any case, here's the damage.
The good news - I don't think it's that bad (though I could certainly be wrong, given how much I don't know). In any case, it unquestionably could have been far worse. The bad news - I have no experience working with fiberglass, gel coat, etc. I think that all of the impacted areas should probably be patched, both inside and out - just looking for some feedback from people who actually have experience. Should I repair this myself, or seek out a professional? I won't be attempting repair until spring (unless not repairing quickly is a bad idea), and I do have plenty of experience working with epoxy and epoxy-like materials so I'm confident that I can do an adequate job with some reading and experimenting. I'm less confident that I can do an aesthetically pleasing job, especially with gel coat repair, but aesthetics are pretty dang low on my priority list, as you can probably tell by how many non-tree related scratches I've put on this hull in less than a year.
In any case, here's the damage.
