bad weekend need a little help

[Lake.OD]

I must start by saying "bad" may be a little mellow dramatic. I was jumping on the dock to grab some gear and had my buddy pulling out my boat when my beloved Kidder Redline got caught on the dock support. To make matters worse my friend paniced and jumped up to protect the boat and when he did he rammed the throttle all the way back..... The important thing was that nobody was hurt and amazing enough my beloved old redline actually slowed the boat enough that it snapped off the ski holder (illusion tower) It sounded like a gunshot when the weld broke....

The rack and ski where scooped up by a bystander on the dock and amazing enough... the only thing that broke was the rack. Just snapped at the weld. The boat has a 1/4 inch scratch in the gel coat and I cleaned it up nice. All in all, I feel really lucky. The ski however, not so good. It has a huge gash on the bottom. The top is still perfect.

First, is it even possible to fix this ski, it is like an old friend. Second, if it will never be right again, should I do an upgrade? I ski mostly open water and will occassionally try and run the course. A definate beginner (even though it has been ten years every other weekend). However, I still love it!!!! I am 6 foot 3 inches and about 215 lbs. I had a 72" kidder redline for about the last seven years and it has done me well. I have been told it is too big... among other things, but you never know with "experts". I ski about 30 mph usually. I am making an effort to improve, but I always thought that ski would get me where ever I needed to go.

Thoughts on a new ski??? Should I just get another Redline? I love my cinch comp boots, can I just buy a blank? Can I get the old girl fixed or is it warped?

I need to order this week because I will be back down in two weeks and I need my fix. Any help is really appriciated. Love this site.

J

[electricjohn]

My brothers use a product called 3M-5200 on their boats, and say it works great for repairs like filling holes, ect. It takes days to cure but it is strong. Look into that, it can be found at any marine place.

[NorCaliBu]

I used JB Weld to repair a ski once. It worked great. Still have the ski...repair is still holding...been 10+ years.

Mix up the epoxy, fill in the gouge, getting the repair "close" to smooth with the ski bottom. Once cured, I used a dremel to take it down closer and then sanded by hand to get it level with the base material. My damage was on the rail but patching the base would be similar.

[corey]

A two part epoxy works well and is pretty easy to shape after it sets up. Depending on the size of the gouge it may or may not be a long term fix but it probably worth a shot. We repaired a CDX that got hit by a prop (don't know how it happened, customer brought it in looking very sad) a couple of years back and its still holding strong!