Is This Insect Eating My Boat?

royden · #1 (**permalink**) 21-08-2011, 12:33 PM

I have just bought an old boat (built USA 30 years ago, sailed in Uruguay and Brazil for 3 years, then brought to Plymouth a year ago, where it has been moored ever since) and at dusk a few days ago I noticed a bee-like insect on an area where the gel-coat is damaged. Looking at this ans other small areas of damage it looks like the insect has been eating into or throughthe gel coat as deep as the underlying GRP.

Boat people I asked about this looked at me as if I was mad, and said they have never heard of insects eating gel-coat. Am I right in concluding the insect was eating the plastic, or not?

Here are some pictures of the insect and the damage to the gel-coat. I found the insect lying along one edge of the triangular area in the larger picture with its head into one of the corners. Could it have come as an egg or pupa from S America, as some of the trails seem to start near the edge of the teak toe rails.