This is what was found on applying a hot air gun to the cracked segment of chine: a long strip of glass tape poorly adherent with polyester resin. Naturally I had to chase it along to inspect the length of the tape. It turned out to be the whole length of the chine.

The chine join looks dodgy in places but there is no obvious rot and the wood seems perfectly dry. Once the tape was stripped along to the bow further investigation just had to take place. A huge amount of polyester (plastic padding type car body filler) filler was found and this too was scraped off to reveal a real mess around the bow knuckle. The plywood however looks in reasonable shape.

The glass mat has been dried out by the heat gun but the adhesion is hopeless. More extensive removal follows along with the realisation that a quick patch on the chine is no longer an option and that we are now looking at a complete hull stripdown...

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