Bill,

I have several suggestions / comments:

1.  In the areas where you are down to wood, you need to sand enough to clean it up and to feather out onto the old glass where it is still well attached.

2.  If the area you are covering is at the base of the stem & stern posts, then you will have better luck with some glass cloth rather than tape.  You can cut the cloth on the bias and it will lay much better over the curve.

3.  You may want to add the rub strips offered by CLC.  They are two layers of dynel cloth bedded in epoxy and covered with epoxy thickened with carbon powder.  These are very very tough and the black will cover any ugly spots where the wear has been the worst.

4.  If the entire bottom is banged up, and you anticipate a lot more bangs, you might want to consider a black bottom - epoxy and carbon.  Lazlo can give you the ins and outs of that process as I believe he put that on his Woo Duck.

5.  Going back to your question, you need to at least sand off all the varnish / paint in the areas that will receive repair.  If you have good cglass, don't cut through it.

Enjoy your refurb.

Paul

Thanks for the quick reply. Great suggestions and advice. That's kinda what I had figured but some of the other posts I read were confusing.