Coming in last night after dark I hit a limb on a submerged cypress tree. It was solid enough that it stopped the boat and wouldn't let go. So, I got out in less than knee deep water and it floated off the limb. I waded the rest of the way to the house and placed the boat on a couple of Adirondack chairs in the back yard. As you can see in the picture it didn't pierce the skin but it scraped all the coating off. It didn't leak so the weave must be well saturated. My base coat, BTW, is Kilz.

This morning, I scraped, sanded, and wiped the damaged area down with lacquer thinner and made a patch using three pieces of 4 inch ceconite tape glued to the original skin. After the glue dried I ironed it flat and put the coatings on. Ready to go for a short 17 mile trial run down the Mississippi tomorrow.

After seeing (and feeling) the damage, I have a lot better respect for a SOF and polyester skin.

barryb