Repairing a daggerboard

My 13' sailboat has a mahogany daggerboard. There is a crack in it, running
about 1/3rd of the length, about 1" from the trailing edge.
It does not affect anything, but I am concerned it will crack further and
break off; so I am hoping to stabilize it to prevent that.

I showed it to a cabinet maker. He suggested routing some slots in it,
perpendicular to the crack, and filling the slots with fiberglass/epoxy.
The slots would have to be pretty small, because there simply isn't much
material to work with so close to the edge. I would then put a layer of
cloth over it to hold it together. (there ought to be enough clearance for
a layer of cloth.)

I have some leftover glass cloth and epoxy from another project, but wonder
about the technique. Would I take some cloth apart and soak the yarn in
epoxy, and then stuff it in the slots?

Any advice would be appreciated.

 > My 13' sailboat has a mahogany daggerboard. There is a crack in it,
running
 > about 1/3rd of the length, about 1" from the trailing edge.
 > It does not affect anything, but I am concerned it will crack further and
 > break off; so I am hoping to stabilize it to prevent that.

how much does the cracked section move relative to the rest of the wood?
I've stuck oars back together using just superglue before now (still going
strong).

I've had good success with fine cracks with just running epoxy into the
crack, and then very lightly painting epoxy across, you'd be surprised at
how much abuse even a tiny amount of epoxy like that will take on.

If it were my daggerboard I would _be_tempted_ to try running epoxy into the
crack if the seperated section was not flexing a great deal and seeing how
that held up. If it re-cracks then a more aggressive strategy would be in
order (drill through with a FINE drill bit in a few places (more towards the
end) and fill the holes with epoxy perhaps? a bit like spotwelding if you
want an analogy, or what your cabinetmaker suggested).

I would be strongly swayed by what your cabinetmaker suggested, he has a far
better idea of wood and it's treatment than I do and most importantly, has
seen the piece of timber in question.

Another thought I have is that a light, running-epoxy-into-the-gap technique
could well be complemented effectively and as minimally intrusively as
possible by running a little glassfibre tape along the bottom of the dagger
board. This would be far less visually intrusive, would "tie" the two piece
of wood together at their point of greatest leverage and would add
considerably to the abrasion resistance of the timber.

Just a few thoughts.

Al<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->