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· Marine enamel for touch- ups For fibreglass repairs:· Fibreglass or epoxy resin Inflatable boats:· Foot pump
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Aluminium boats are "easy" because they are generally more robust and less corrosive than most other materials, requiring an absolute minimum of maintenance. Usually, all you need to do after each trip is to hose the boat down inside and out with fresh water and a little household detergent to remove salt. About every fifteen months, any damage to the paintwork should be touched up with marine enamel as added protection, and for appearances. For loading your Aluminium boat onto a car, a side-loading roof rack is recommended. These ingenious devices allow a person of average strength, mate or female, to load the boat single-handed. Repairing Aluminium.After boating in rough weather where the hull has been subject to stress or impact, rivets may loosen, a seam break out or in extreme conditions, the metal may be gashed. Fiberglass or epoxy resin is useful for making repairs. Use a mallet to carefully return the edges of the metal to their original positions remove any broken rivets and straighten edges. Remove all paint and surface grease with paint stripper then solvent acetone. Use abrasives to key the surface so the fiberglass repair will hold then follow the same steps as for repairing a fiberglass boat. Inflatable boats.Perhaps the easiest boats of all to own, store and handle are the inflatable, from the small one-man jobs for use in enclosed waters to the robust multichamber models. The larger of these has a wooden floor and transom designed to carry a 4 h.p. outboard motor. If inflated and used according to manufacturer's instructions, they give years of enjoyable use. In any event, patching kits are available and should be carried as standard gear. When storing an inflatable boat it is important that the fabric be thoroughly dried out and free of salt, then lightly coated with talcum powder.
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