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NDK Explorer - External skeg box repair advice

Geoff

Geoff

Paddler
Joined
Aug 9, 2020
Messages
21
Location
victoria, bc
The skeg on my explorer still seems quite water tight (the interior looks thoroughly glassed in) but on the outside it's showing a gap where some material has been nocked off.

Love some advice on a good approach to repair this. The lazy impulse is to nock off anything loose and goop some epoxy into the gap. But I wasn't clear if that would make a later more thorough repair a larger pain.
 

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Is the whole skeg box removable?
I'd be inclined to excavate a bit further to find the extent of what looks like a void.
For filling, I'd probably use a good marine (WEST or System Three) epoxy thickened with milled glass fibers and antisag (Cabosil), after making sure the exposed surfaces were cleaned and well roughened.
Add gelcoat later for cosmetics?

Hopefully @red kite will jump in with some good ideas. I've never worked on that type of skeg.
 
Aaaaaand Kari-Tek strikes again... Or in other words, known (to me) weak point with this kind of skeg.

This plastic skeg box is multi layered, that gap, for now, opens just into the void in the inside skeg box (for lack of a better description) and water might eventually find its way into the rear hatch. The white "outside" skeg box part has a somewhat weird, small lip to attach it to the hull. In true NDK fashion, that might or might not have been thoroughly prepped and attached in some boats and then generously gelcoated over to hide any evidence of the process. It's my theory that the polyester resin only attaches to the plastic long term with good prep work, so, over time some of those joints might crack.

I've tried the thickened epoxy version before but IMHO the only long term solution seems to be to wrap fiberglass from the hull to the waterside / into the slot of the white box. Remove the black insert for easier access. As @JohnAbercrombie mentioned, high quality marine grade epoxy strongly recommended.

karitek1.jpeg
karitek2.jpeg

Sorry, no progress photos. And the "finished!" picture doesn't really show the wrap around well. The left / first picture is after initial clean up... The kayak came in with a generous amount of well worn Gorilla tape around the edge.
 
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red kite said:
I've tried the thickened epoxy version before but IMHO the only long term solution seems to be to wrap fiberglass from the hull to the waterside / into the slot of the white box.
Click to expand...

Appreciate the advice. That does look like a rather tidy repair you did! I haven't worked with fiberglass yet but may have to study up a bit and take a similar crack at it.
 
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