Fiberglass Bulkhead Repair
That Restores Your
Boat’s Strength.

A bulkhead that’s cracked, dented by a heavy hit or soft when you push on it isn’t carrying its share of the load, so the hull around it has to work harder. We sound the panel and its tabbing to find where the damage really ends, grind back to solid glass, and rebuild with new core and laminate where needed.

Bulkheads on many older boats are plywood, and once bilge water or a leaking fitting reaches the wood, it can rot behind a skin that still looks fine. Dark staining or crumbling wood along the base is a common clue. We cut out everything wet or rotted back to solid structure before the new core and laminate go in.

Years of flexing, engine vibration and bilge moisture can let the fiberglass skin pull away from the plywood underneath, leaving a lifted edge or a panel that sounds hollow when tapped. We remove the loose laminate back to a sound bond, check the core behind it, and lay up new fiberglass so skin and core work together again.

A bulkhead is held to the hull and deck by tabbing, strips of fiberglass laminated across the joint. When that tabbing cracks or lets go, you may see a gap along the seam or hear creaking underway. We grind off the failed tabbing, prep both surfaces and re-tab the joint so the bulkhead and hull act as one structure again.

When a bulkhead is too rotted or broken to save, patching it only buys time. We cut the old panel out, fit a new one to the opening, skin it in fiberglass, bed it with a radiused fillet and tab it into the hull. If only part has failed, we replace just that section and tie it into sound material.

Some bulkheads are sound but were lightly glassed at the factory, or they sit where the hull works hardest, like the engine room or under a console. We grind back the existing tabbing and add wider, tapered layers of fiberglass so the load spreads over a bigger area and the joint is less likely to crack again.