Gel repairs to damaged Kayak

Kayak makes a long journey before touching the water

Richard Browne, a keen kayaker from South Wales purchased a specialist kayak back in the summer of 2007 from a manufacturer in New Zealand. Unfortunately when the boat arrived in the UK just after Christmas it suffered some damage in transit.

Richard brought the kayak, measuring over 6 metres long, to ELITE Marine Services at Tewkesbury Marina and asked them to take a look at the damage.

Lee Daniel explains; “the kayak Richard purchased has a kevlar hull, an extremely durable fibre, with a gel coat outer layer. The damage to the bow of the kayak immediately suggested a stress fracture as though someone had stamped on the front of the kayak. The damage to the rear however looked as though there had been a break out of the mould resulting in cracks in the gel - a manufacturing fault.” ELITE provided Richard with an estimate for the work and set about finding a perfect colour match for the kayak, which had a distinct orange and blue design.

The repairs to the kayak were carried out in a controlled environment to make sure the temperature remained consistent. First job was routering out the cracks in the gel and then filling the holes with new gel made by mixing catalyst into the gel as a hardener to make it set. This then had to be left to set properly at the correct temperature. This process sometimes has to be repeated to ensure that the hole is properly filled depending on the temperature and if the gel shrinks back.

Once hardened the ELITE technician sanded down the gel to make it perfectly smooth before priming it ready for painting. They then applied spray to the area after finding the perfect colour match, which was recoated to give it extra resilience to withstand the forces.

Richard was really pleased with the work carried out: “I am so grateful to ELITE for the work carried out to my kayak. It took over six months for the kayak to arrive from placing my initial order and to find it damaged when it finally did arrive was terrible. The guys at ELITE really took the time to explain the type of damage and how it could have occurred which I really appreciated. Now I can actually get on the water and that’s thanks to the excellent job carried out by ELITE.”