Fanatic Ultra CAT Repair

My Fanatic Ultra Cat/FUC board was dying: {especially after a major catapult}

An initial attempt was made to "fill the hole":

Now i will use Mr Ed's comments - he is the one who continued the repair(S)...

"The gray stuff sanded well and I filled the gaps with an epoxy mix and applied a fiberglass patch."

"Once the glass patch's epoxy hardened at bit a layer of glass was epoxied over the bow.  Its easy to trim the excess when the epoxy is half set."

 

"Here a 'fill in the weave' coat of epoxy with a mix of graphite and white pigment has been painted on."

 

  "with a second fill coat.  I was not aiming for perfection here - just a usable board."

 

 "After taking off the foot straps it was apparent the the attachment points need some love."

 "Some of the attachments were easy to pry out..."

"The old attachment area was filled with epoxy, then with thickened epoxy and the hardware. The old battery is keeping thing flat.  There was quite a soft spot here so the hope is that the epoxy will fill some of the gaps and harden things up."

 

 "Here is what it looks like after the weight is removed"

 

 "This one was in really bad shape.  Not much was holding this on in."

 "Here I filled coated the inside of the hole and the insert with epoxy, then added lots of thicked epoxy into the hole, and applied weight."

 "After the repair before sanding."

 "Here I've added a fiberglass patch to make the area stronger and to help keep the attachment points in the board"

 "And a layer of fiberglass over the rear.  You can see the piece of patch over the rear repair through the second layer of glass."

 "I was using scraps from my boat building - here you can see where two pieces overlap."

 "With two fill coat applied things look okay and the board is in better shape."

All I can say is it looks AMAZING and water ready. It was a rotten old board before - that only survived because of its flotation - due to over 200 liter volume.

BIG THANKS to Mr. Ed and someone who wishes to remain nameless - who both helped IMMENSELY getting this project "afloat" !!!!

Got my baby CAT back home today. Mr. Ed suggested I wait another day or so before putting it back in the water. 

put the foot protector {from the carbon centre board} back on

then wrapped it like a baby in swaddling cloth {sound like an idiot trying to be cool :-) }





















For sure this means dew forms on the bag - we have foggy mornings ...

When attaching the footstraps some went better than others - was obliged to MarineTex one set :-(

Here is the FIRST test run on the local river with a NorthSails Duke 6.9.
Ideally should have been 8.x, but i donut trust the flimsy mast base...

As I indicated earlier, the deck was slippery where the graphite was applied. Ed, the boat builder, says this is "normal". I was contemplating the application of Chinook ReDek, but was unsure how this would take. Since I also wanted to get a more uniform look... I decided to apply strips of anti-skid tape, which i use in the winter on the snow sleds as well. Here is the final look - just need to test with bare feet on the water now ...

The problem with this "traction paper" is - it is great for winter where there is ice n snow, but in the summer it stays like rough sandpaper for quite some time = danger ... Likes to eat skin - like here: {this photo was taken one week after the "incident"}

Board was sold in spring of 2016