My new to me skiff has a crack in the gelcoat where the cockpit meets the bulkhead (just cosmetic as the bulkhead is glassed to the floor). Looking for best way to approach DIY repair as I don’t have too much experience with gelcoat - thanks
That appears more structural than cosmetic to my eye over a screen. I’m guessing a woven cloth in the 0/90 orientation was used to tab the bulkhead in and it cracked parallel to the bulkhead/floor junction. Any gelcoat repair is likely futile unless the underlying problem is corrected prior.
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I thought so too but Ankona confirmed the bulkhead is glassed in from the inside so this is just a crack in the gelcoat where it meets the smooth surface of the bulkhead
I’m with JC on this one. Sure, it may be glassed , but there is too much movement between the floor and the bulkhead, so it wasn’t glassed enough or in the right places.I hate to say never, but no boat maker would ever glass just one side of a bulkhead if that can reach both sides.
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Ya got me taking a second look at the pic and it appears… that perhaps they glassed the bulkhead from one side and putty filleted the other and that’s where the crack is. Either way, simply fixing the gelcoat or gelcoat/fillet is futile as it will return rather soon.
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Yeah James that looks like no glass there and just a little putty where a molded panel was glued to a non molded floor.
You brought up a great point about the woven. Lots of home builders and many professionals tab things with a 0/90 fabric and don’t understand why it fails.
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My DiYer opinion would be to, get to grinding. If they only glassed one side, I’d get it all cleaned up, lay down a new filet and add some glass, then finish with gel.
If you just gel coat what’s there, it’ll be cracked again in no time. The only other option would be, doing a thicker filet, but honestly at that point adding some glass isn’t really that much more involved.
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Fiberglass flexes. I don’t know the overall design of your boat and what drops in and has a joint, but I think @MikeCockman is right - it is just going to crack again with gel coat in there. You can just use some flexible caulk and fill it for now.
On my last skiff - a Beavertail B2 - the boat was actually four parts - the hull, the liner, the splash well, and the cap. The cap joined up against the splash well at the stern, but this splash well also was connected to the engine mount area at the stern. These boats were notorious for having some spider cracking on the top of the splash well, and also having the caulk separate between the well and cap. This was all due to flex - I re-caulked the well and cap and it never separated again.
If its only glassed on the inside, You would have to grind it out and glass the outside then re-gelcoat over it. Anything you do to the outside without glass will just crack again.