29th March - Open Heart Surgery - Firefly style
Big day, time to sort out the delamination. Having consulted a few wise old sages I was prepared with syringes. The idea is to drill two holes through the first lamination, inject resin into one, and create a vacuum through the other. You pull the resin between the laminations and then clamp down.
The first thing I did was very carefully drill a couple of holes. To my relief the delamination was not really delamination at all. The cracks on the surface were actually the butting joins cracking on the outer lamination plank. This is an easier problem to resolve, using a different technique.
With a sharp Stanley knife you literally cut out the dead wood for a couple of mm either side of the cracked join. This creates a 'V' down to the next lamination. Make sure your workshop is warm, and then gently heat the wood with a heat gun (not blowing the garage fuse like I did!) Then feed in epoxy (I used the aforementioned syringe) The warm wood thins the epoxy allowing it to penetrate deep into the wood.
The boat looks like it's been attacked by Freddy Krouger, but it felt good sorting out the problem.
I'm pretty happy with the overall result, but only a few years of hard sailing will give a true reading!!