I have owned this Souris River Quetico 17 canoe for a decade, bought it as an end of the season rental from an outfitter. It has built up many scratches and about 6 cracks. I am looking to repair it before taking it out again for a trip in early July. I am going to fix the cracks with fiberglass and epoxy resin.

I am questioning if I should just repair the cracks, or should I also recoat the bottom while I am working on it? Since it's an epoxy coated SR, I would recoat with the West Supply 105/207. I read the SR repair and refinish guidance, have talked to a few people, and read a number of repair postings here on the forum. I am still unclear on how I would both patch and recoat. Would I just patch on inside, then flip over and recoat (after sanding and prepping)? Or patch on inside and outside, then recoat at the same time? Or, perhaps just patching for now, then recoat after next trip? I would have just shy of two weeks for it to fully cure before I take it out again. I don't want to bite off more than I can chew here, but I do have tools, time, patience.

It clearly has seen a lot of use and I would love for it to get more. The outfitters did a rib reinforcement job and some keel covers, that are wearing now, too. If I did the recoat now I likely wouldn't fuss with new keel covers, and would be unsure if that would be something I'd do in the future.

Any guidance on this would be appreciated.

I've mostly done this with wenonah kevlar canoes and not souris river, but what I would do is patch the cracks that go through the hull both inside and out. If the cracks only disrupts material on the inside patch inside, disrupts material outside patch outside (you get the idea). You'll probably mostly have cracks that go through unless they overlap a rib in your case.

You could probably wait with a full recoat until after your trip if you're pressed for time and then you can take your time and pay attention to detail and things like the skid plates. I think full recoats are mostly cosmetic, but they may seal up some smaller less noticeable cracks in the laminate as well.

Thanks for the input. I'm leaning that way, but a concern I have is about doing an outside patch, letting it cure, and then coming back later in the season for a full recoat. Unsure if the epoxy on the outside patch repair areas would react well to a further coat of epoxy, or would I have to sand it down completely again to recoat?

Definitely do the full epoxy recoat. It will look brand new. You will be amazed. You don't have to do that part before your trip. I did it in a weekend. Same as you - bought from an outfitter. I couldn't believe the results.

I followed these videos on YouTube.
Easy to follow steps.
Video

BoatBitch: "Thanks for the input. I'm leaning that way, but a concern I have is about doing an outside patch, letting it cure, and then coming back later in the season for a full recoat. Unsure if the epoxy on the outside patch repair areas would react well to a further coat of epoxy, or would I have to sand it down completely again to recoat? "

You can just sand the patched areas down lightly before your recoat. Shouldn't be a big deal especially since you're using glass for your patches and not kevlar. Epoxy sticks to epoxy just fine but the better you prep your surfaces (cleaning, sanding, degreasing) the better your results will be.

I just repaired a friend's Souris River 17' El Tigre with cracks and hull damage. The bottom of the canoe near the center between two of the ribs had slumped upward from cracks sustained from dragging it it loaded over a beaver dam. I used a 2x4 to span the distance between the 2 gunwales above the area and used a hydraulic jack and heat gun to push the area back into place. As long as the shape of the hull hasn't been compromised you can go about the repair process with the good advise already mentioned here. I used the same West Systems 105/207 combo with 6oz. fiberglass cloth. I followed several of the steps from the YouTube video series already posted here from redrockstore.com as I found them the most helpful. I had not attempted a Kevlar canoe repair to this extent before but it is very doable. As Argo mentioned I would suggest applying a topcoat on your Souris River canoe as it does give the canoe a like new appearance when the repair work is completed. I used the 7" West Systems rollers for that.

If it was mine, I wouldn't add the weight with a full recoat of epoxy, I'd just sand it a bit on the inside around those cracks wet out some glass and lay it over those cracks.

schucanoe: "I just repaired a friend's Souris River 17' El Tigre with cracks and hull damage. The bottom of the canoe near the center between two of the ribs had slumped upward from cracks sustained from dragging it it loaded over a beaver dam. I used a 2x4 to span the distance between the 2 gunwales above the area and used a hydraulic jack and heat gun to push the area back into place. As long as the shape of the hull hasn't been compromised you can go about the repair process with the good advise already mentioned here. I used the same West Systems 105/207 combo with 6oz. fiberglass cloth. I followed several of the steps from the YouTube video series already posted here from redrockstore.com as I found them the most helpful. I had not attempted a Kevlar canoe repair to this extent before but it is very doable. As Argo mentioned I would suggest applying a topcoat on your Souris River canoe as it does give the canoe a like new appearance when the repair work is completed. I used the 7" West Systems rollers for that."

It's pretty amazing how you can keep these composite boats going. I think short of a boat being fully torn into separate pieces, distorted to the point of not being able to be brought back to a "canoe-like" shape, or being left in the sun until the composite is disintegrating there isn't much you can't fix to keep them going if you're willing to put in some work.

I’ve repaired cracks and recoated the entire bottom and halfway up to the gunwales on my Souris River Q17. The crack repair and recoating were done as separate jobs. I’ve been happy with the results. I used West Systems 105 resin and 205 hardener for both. I used kevlar patches on the inside of the canoe (either one layer or two with second layer larger than the first on larger cracks). Then I put a very thin fiberglass patch on the outside. I used the 2 oz. fiberglass that Souris River uses as the outer layer of the canoe. This makes for a pretty smooth patch on the outside. After a number of patch jobs and lots of scratches, I recoated the bottom and sides of the canoe up to the height of the decals. Sanding is important in the recoating and patching. As I said earlier, the outer patch is thin if you use the light fiberglass, but after recoating it is perfectly flat. When recoating over the patches, I didn’t sand all the way down to the glass but did sand it pretty good. I got the kevlar and fiberglass from Souris River, so it’s the same stuff the canoe was made from.