Trouble in Paradise

Hello all, this happened last weekend!

Surfing is a wonderful maritime sport. There's a magical combination of sun, salt, and surf that grants a wave-rider the ability to harness one of the ultimate forces of nature. And it's an experience I treasure enough to endure bruises, lacerations, sunburn, and sand burn for just one more wave. Last one, I swear.

Surfing has been a longtime staple in my family, but also a sport that seems to peak and settle through the generations as time marches on. Nearly all of my mother's immediate family found a haven among the waves off Diamond Head. My own immediate family have all hung ten at some pinnacle of Hawaiian living. (Whenever we're actually on the islands to enjoy it.) Mom and brother in their youth, dad during his military training.

The sport was something I had always had an interest in but did not pick up until my 25th birthday--chiefly because surfboards cost roughly $100/ft of board. Most beginners start on tankers, the 10'+ variety, which will set you back a dizzying $1000+. I nabbed my fiery longboard on sale for less than half of what it should have cost.

Now the trouble with surfing, beyond clueless newbies and self-inflicted injury, are sustaining dings in your board courtesy of reef or other surfers on the water. I've had my share of both but have not recorded how to repair the damages until now.

This time, I took my sister out to White Plains to get her a decent session since all of her other surfing experiences ended badly. I helped her pick out a board from the MWR and coached her on basics. We put in and away we went. It was a beautiful day, decent sets, gentle wind. My sister did extremely well, taking my observations in stride and picking up on the subtle nuances quickly. She caught several waves without my having to call out worthy faces. Toward the end of our session (or because of the incident), she came up close behind me just as a larger wave broke and shoved me back into her. Her nose hit my tail and this deep ding was the result of that collision.

Nothing huge, but deep enough to invite a waterlogged mess. No thank you.

We promptly got out of the water only to realize we had also cut up our feet on the reef as well.

Nothing huge, but deep enough to invite staph infections. No thank you.

So while both of us literally limped home, I realized I would not be able to hit the surf again until I repaired my board. Luckily for me, I still had leftover material from earlier surfboard repairs. This would be my third.

My repair kit components!

I had purchased a surfboard repair kit for $12 from the Navy Exchange a year or so ago in lieu of sending my board to professional shop. I often get beat up badly when I secure dings, so I end up with more than one. The one which prompted me to invest in my own repair was a surfer T-bone strike which ripped open more than 3 feet of my rail. (The jerk never apologized either.) A huge repair.

[I don't have a workbench to set my board on, so I laid it out over two sturdy chairs. I also wear sunglasses and a bandana over my nose and mouth while working with the mixing compound and the fiberglass. You really don't want to breathe that stuff in.]

The kit was a complete one! UV-curing resin, with a mixing chemical compound to fill dings, a sheet of fiberglass, razor, a spreader, and 4 grits of sandpaper. (200, 100, 150, 60.)

The UV-curing resin and powder compound drying in the sun after application.

The first thing I did, much like preparing a flesh wound, was cleaning the surrounding area of the ding. I sanded the area down and wiped it clean again. Then I got a spare plastic cup and mixed the UV-curing resin and the powder compound until it reached a peanut butter thickness. I had to fill a big portion because the ding itself was deep and the area around it had been compacted by the hit. This was my attempt to fill out the spot. I waited 10 minutes for the resin to set (no longer tacky to the touch) and brought it back in to my 'workbench.'

I used the 60 grit to sand down the cured resin.

I sanded down the cured resin with the 60 grit included in my kit until the repair was level with the rest of the surfboard.

Adding fiberglass over the repair.

 Next, I cut out a rectangle of fiberglass large enough to cover the affected area. I cleared the spot of resin dust with a wet wipe and applied the fiberglass. I saturated the fiberglass with just the resin and used the spreader to get an even coat.

At this angle you can see the resin-saturated fiberglass over the ding spot.

The resin by itself dries quickly so I had to work fast. You also want to be careful not to drip resin or build it up into ridges because it's harder to sand back down. After this coat of resin was applied, I set the board back out in the sun for another 10 minutes to cure.

More sanding. Sanding down fiberglass is hard work!

Now for the hard part. Resin sets like a rock. Resin-saturated fiberglass is rough rock. I used a stiff sponge to help stave off the heat from the friction during sanding. I started again with the 60 grit until I got most of the roughest edges smoothed. I bumped up to 100 for more buffing and refining. Once I was satisfied I could have applied another layer of resin to strengthen the repair even more, but I opted for a wet finish.

Prep for the wet finish.

I borrowed a bowl we rarely use and still operating with the stiff sponge, I used the 150 grit to smooth down the resin and finally the 200 for a fine finish. I was sweating something fierce by the time I was done.

Repair complete.

And there she is, fixed and sealed and ready to tear up the surf again. Now a professional shop would paint over the white patch. I probably could have spray painted the thing myself, but I chose to do something a little more my style.

I popped a Google search for tattoos and came up with several images and I felt torn between a shark and a manta ray. I ended up going with a shark curling its body around the white patch. I wish I could have gotten the waves to 'crest' into the white a little more, but I didn't want to crowd the shark either. 

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the design.

 Happy weekend.