Over the summer of 2020 my quarantine neighbor, Lou, offered to give me a sailing lesson. I loved learning how to sail his Sunfish because it was simple to learn, but challenging to sail. When we were done we noticed there was a large crack on the right side of the hull, so if I wanted to sail again I would need to fix the boat. That meant I needed to find a way to fix the boat. My stepdad had a lot of experience with using fiberglass and offered to help me. 

There were two damaged parts: first, the brace that holds together the top and bottom of the boat came off. I would tackle that later. The more important part to fix was the large crack on the main part of the boat. I used a cutoff tool to completely remove the damaged portion so I could fix that separately without getting fiberglass resin on the rest of the boat. I soaked a fiberglass cloth in resin and catalyst, and applied it to the damaged portion of the boat, then repeated that process four times. The catalyst combines with the resin, which hardens and solidifies the cloth, making it a strong material. I aligned the newly repaired portion to where it had been previously. Then I laid fiberglass cloth and resin on the seam to seal the hull. 

Once I repaired the crack in the hull then it was time to reseal the two halves of the boat with the brace and some pop rivets. (Pop rivets are basically a nail, and when you hammer it in the non-exposed part expands to make an airtight seal.) This was significantly easier because the holes were already in the brace, I just had to insert a pop rivet and hammer it down so it could fuse the two halves of the boat together. Because I had built a chicken coop that summer I had learned how to efficiently and effectively hammer a nail, which helped me fix the boat. 

Now, with a fully repaired boat, I went out for a test sail to see how I could handle the boat on my own. I realized sailing is easy to learn and understand, but challenging to do on my own. It is very different from the other sports and activities because it did not require as much physical strain, but it did require lots of concentration and will. Sailing demands careful examination of the wind, my speed, not hitting people on the lake, maneuverability, using the rudder and the sail, and other various parts. In hindsight, sailing required me to multitask and be aware of many variables at the same time. I really enjoyed learning how to fix and then sail the boat, and I look forward to learning more next summer.