Is this worth fixing?

I’m looking at this pirogue for a very low price. It looks like whoever owned it prior drilled 3 rather large holes in the bottom roughly 2 inches in diameter to either hang it as a display piece or another purpose. The pirogue is fiberglass and I’ve never worked with it. Any insight on a way to patch the holes or if it’s even worth the trouble would be appreciated. Im currently trying to upload a photo

 

Bruce,
Welcome to the forums....
Define "large"...small bolt drill holes are easy...big sections cut away are hard....
Pictures....

 

Image posted and from the photos they look about 2” in diameter

 

First I would inspect the whole hull to make sure there is not significant other damage.
Then, those should be a simple fix. What I would do is grind back the edge at a 45 degree angle from one side (I'd choose the inside). Then using a backing piece (on the outside bottom) with a peel layer, lay up material, cut in overlapping layers to fill up each hole to the desired thickness, covering it all with a vacuum bag to get the voids out. Flip it over and then sand and re-cover the whole bottom.

 

Perhaps those were inspection holes they drilled.
How do the laminations look?

They may be for that pogo-stick propulsion system they're developing.
Have you seen that? This would be a 3-holer. A lot for such a small boat.

 

Hello Bruce101,
How thick is the fiberglass?
Is the surface shown with the holes the same piece of material as the bottom of the boat, or is it a flat sole above a deeper hull?
Do you have a picture of the bottom?

 

I was also wondering about the questions asked by @Tops above.

Re how you can buy this pirogue for a very low price, if you do acquire her, what do you then intend to do with her?

 

A basic and functional repair isn't too hard to do but a yacht quality finish for the whole boat will be a bigger task.The questions you have to ask are why did somebody cut those holes and does the design have fundamental flaws.Inevitably,somebody will be along to insist that epoxy and 1708 are the only solution and it would be overkill,not to mention more costly than the value of the boat.
You can do an adequate repair by tapering the glass to a feather edge over a distance of about 3/4" and scuffing the surface for an additional 2" or so around the holes.You can attach a thin piece of plastic or melamine faced ply that is thin enough to conform to the minimal longitudinal curvature of the boat with self tapping screws-you should wax it before attaching it.A tiny amount of gelcoat can b bushed into place and only needs to overlap the edge of the holes by 1/2" or thereabouts.Once cured add 3 plies of glass mat-ideally 600gsm-with each ply an inch or so larger than the preceding piece.Once cured,remove the ply from the outside and fill the temporary screw holes with gelcoat.The amount of time and effort to devote to the cosmetic aspect of the repair is for the owner to decide.If,after use the boat is found to be useful,my next step would be to build in a bit of flotation.

 

A pirogue is not a yacht so the finish can be mid-rough. Simply grind a taper and an area about 3" around the hole. Then duct tape the hole from one side and laminate layers of the same total thickness. Start with a whole piece and continue with smaller ones. I would use mat for the repair. Grind the sharp edges and go fishing. I would say about an hour to fix the holes.

 

Looks like there is a core in that section, it will probably be foam or balsa wood. If it has been exposed to the weather it will be wet, this isn't much of a problem for foam, but terminal for balsa. It can still be fixed rather easily though.

Remove any wet foam or balsa from the inside of the hull, this will leave only the outside skin around the hole. Grind an area about 4-6" bigger than the hole, then put some tape (packing tape works) on the outside of the hull. This gives you a surface shape that matches the hull contour. Apply several layers of glass from the inside and let it get hard. Now you can pull the tape from the outside, you'll need to sand it down slightly and apply at least one layer of glass. This surface can be sanded smooth and made to look great, or leave it as is, it's just a cosmetic thing.

At this point you have a watertight hull that you can make as nice as you want.

It's not going make a difference in the type of resin you use, and most any combination of CSM and fabric will work, so don't stress over it. Do one hole first to get your process dialed in before doing the others.

If you mess it up the first time, sand off all the ugly and start over.