A customer brought in his 6.2m KevlaCat after the boat had impacted the trailer hard enough to fracture both keels. Hard enough that the structure was compromised, not just the surface. Someone had already attempted a repair before the boat arrived at Valentus. Single-sided and it didn’t hold.

That failed repair made everything worse. Kevlar is hygroscopic. Once the laminate is breached and left, water moves through it. By the time the boat came in, what looked like a keel repair from the outside was a more serious internal problem underneath.

What We Did

Assessing it properly meant getting to it properly. The floor was cut out, the fuel tank removed, and the affected sponson stringer pulled to expose the full extent of the damage. No shortcuts. No repairing what's visible and hoping for the best.

Both keel sections were repaired internally and externally using the correct composite process for Kevlar laminates. The underside of the hull was ground back, rebuilt, and reshaped to return the keels to their original profile.

New 200L aluminium fuel tanks installed. Deck rebuilt. Timber floor replaced with composite flooring, removing the rot risk.

The Result

The KevlaCat went back to its owner with structurally sound keels, a rebuilt deck, composite flooring, and new fuel tanks.