Professional Diploma in Fiberglass and Composite Boatbuilding and Repair

This professional diploma prepares you to work confidently with GRP and advanced composites in the boatyard and the workshop. You will study the chemistry and curing of marine resins, fiber architectures, sandwich cores and their mechanical properties; mold preparation, release agents, gelcoat and topcoat, hand lay-up and spray-up, hull and deck laminates, hull-to-deck joints and common open-mold defects; vacuum infusion, bagging consumables, infusion networks, leak testing, degassing and RTM; sandwich design, core shaping, floors and stringers, backing plates, high-load areas, post-curing and weight control; damage diagnosis, scarf repairs, osmosis treatment, gelcoat restoration and core renewal; carbon fiber, aramids, prepregs, oven and autoclave curing and galvanic isolation; and classification rules, ISO 12215, destructive and NDT testing, Barcol hardness and the boat's quality dossier.

What sets this professional diploma apart: it is a boatbuilder's program that follows the composite from the drum of resin to the finished, inspected hull, rather than a purely theoretical course on materials; it gives equal weight to new construction and to repair, including the osmosis and gelcoat work that fills most boatyards; it covers the full range of processes, from hand lay-up and spray-up to infusion, RTM, prepreg and autoclave; it treats health, safety, styrene and VOC control as part of everyday practice; and it closes with an integrated project in which you plan, laminate or repair and inspect a real marine component such as a work-boat hull, a carbon rudder or an osmosis repair plan.