The skeg is held to the fiberglass base with 8x 10mm stainless bolts and some kind of tough translucent plastic isolation washers (4 each side). I grounded out lightly last summer, and scraped the bottom of the skeg (and it did protect the prop). I removed the skeg and brought it home after I hauled for the end of season, and recoated it with 3 or 4 coats of Interprotect 2000. Then I sealed it with butyl tape at the hull base joint, surrounding every bolt with butyl and the perimeter. As you can see the coating is still in very good shape. I used Pettit Vivid white anti-fouling and Micron Extra for the blue.