Inevitably accidents happen, parts break, and things need repair. Over the years we have had a few areas in our gel coat that have been in need of repair. We have tried to color match our 23 year old “white” gel coat before and have had a really difficult time. It might be time for a wrap or a full paint job, but it is not in the cards this time around. The cost is astronomical for both.
So the next best thing is to try to color match again and see if we make these gel coat spot repairs be less noticeable.
Gel coat repairs
Over the years we have had to do some minor gel coat repairs. Some were on the boat before we bought her and some happened during our ownership. Below you will see a rather large rectangle which was repaired in Raiatea. The two spots after the rectangle are just light marks from our fenders and they easily buff out. The other areas color matched at first, but as the sun hits the new gel coat it colors differently than the old gel coat. So, we are going to have Norsand boat yard try to blend these for us and do a few other gel coat repairs.
Conor from the yard does a light sanding, tapes off the surrounding areas, matches the color and applies the paint. And looky looky it is beautiful. Let’s see how it looks in 6 months though. Typically the sun and UV bake the gel coat and changes its colors so even though they match now they might not match in 6-8 months.
The starboard bow had a light crack that needed repair (a catamaran drifted into our two bows while we were at anchor). The crack was repaired but evidently, not well. So, we repair it again. I must say it is freaky to see them drill into the crack, making it bigger, only to fill it properly.
Some Glassing along with Gel Coat Work
The aft bulk heads on both the port and starboard side needed some care. Starboard had a small hairline crack on the front side and port had a small hairline crack on both the front and aft. So, Ben comes in, drills them out, fills and sands them (a few times) and applies several layers of thick fiberglass. Now we just need a quick layer of paint and they will be good to go.
Another cruisers came to visit us and accidentally scraped a line down our starboard hull with his kayak. Lovely. Is this a boaters version of a key mark?
We have some areas in the cockpit that needed love. The hatch under the table that lifts becomes unstable each time we lift it. It causes the gel coat to crack around the hatch.
On both sugar scoops we have large cleats that have cracks below and around them. We remove the cleats, drill out the cracks, fill, sand, fill, sand, and apply fresh gel coat.
Shine like a Diamond
After all of the gel coat repairs have been completed we move on to the wash, polish and wax. This is when progress is really obvious and the hull gets a mirror finish.
Lots of polishing, then waxing to make our girl shine.
All of the above repairs were handled by the professional crew at Norsand Boat yard during our haul out in November 2023. Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind live events. Super depressing outcome with our brand new Coppercoat bottom paint – check it out.