Purpose: Shallow East Coast surf eats jetski noses for breakfast when tricks such as the nose stab, backflip, or re-entry land too steep (aka: lawn dart). Superjet hulls are very weak before they are reinforced and it does not take much to crush the nose in the sand. A couple extra layers of fiberglass is great insurance, and of course is often required.
Recommended for: All Superjet owners interested in shredding some surf.
Difficulty: Not fun. But it can be easily done with a basic understanding of wet layup and attention to detail.
Process:
It will be a several day job to get the nose repaired. Phase 1:
- Pull waterbox, gas tank, battery, pipe, and anything else hindering access to inside front nose area. You want to be able to get your head and shoulders/arms up in this area.
Pulling motor will help but maybe not required.
- Pulling handlepole and controls will help but not required.
- Clean up and grind inside front nose area
- If your nose is hanging, cut it out like this and use some aluminum strapping to secure the two pieces together like this
- Lay up 2-3 layers biax, wait for it to cure (could take 24hrs with old or slower resin/hardener or you can pick up a quart of West Systems resin and medium hardener with pumps from a boat store and hope it works quicker.)
Phase 2:
- Grind out all cracks from the outside. Taper out several inches to minimize curves.
- Test different types of cloth, biax, mat for best layup
Lay it up
- May need to split phase to flip the ski and get the bottom of the lip also
Phase 3:
- Clean everything up
- Break out the body filler - Bondo Fiberglass Resin Jelly
- Sand, body filler, repeat until done.
- Break out the Bondo glazing compound to fill in any swirl marks left from sanding
Tip: Taylor Curtis or Blowsion makes a replacement nose that works by cutting out the old nose, slipping the new one on, securing it, and glassing it in. This could be a good option if your nose is fubar-ed.