TOPIC: Bottom Damage / Repair Advice Needed

I had a boat detailer do a great job yesterday buffing and waxing my oxidized gel coat.


He told me I should fix this fiberglass damage before I leave the boat in the water for any extended period of time.


Also the previous owner did this fix on the bottom with 2 part marine epoxy.


Is this fix OK and would the same fix work for the transom scratches for the rest of the summer?

When I want to get it done right what should I ask for and what do you think I should budget for the repair?

Boy, that Dorsett really buffed out nicely. The gouges on the transom aren't that severe - at least they don't appear to be. If it makes you feel better, you can put a little resin - either polyester or epoxy on them. Better yet - try to get a pro to color match the gelcoat and apply some gelcoat patch. That would look way better and would encapsulate the exposed glass. Unless those damaged areas are worse than they appear - the damage looks superficial.

That is what I would recomend also. Boat looks great with a few flaws. Maybe some macro shots of the damage just to give us a better look. Like this.

Zoomed and cropped... I'm tempted to try a gel-coat repair on the transom lower edge. The glass isn't damaged. It looks like it might be a good place to learn.

THis scar is 6" long and 3/8 wide but it is just the gelcoat layer that is gone. The fiberglass underneath is fine.

I mixed up 2oz of Evercoat Premium Polyester Surfacing Resin. I dabbed it on to seal the fiberglass and had 1.8oz left. While this excercise led me down a little how-to fix gelcoat rabbit-hole, this was a quick and easy temporary fix so I can put the boat in the water tomorrow.

The instructions said I could put gelcoat over it. So maybe after summer is over I'll do a little gelcoat repair.

I might fail a drug test now, but at least the edge is sealed!

Since I'm running in salt and I leave the boat docked 3-4 days a week, the two part resin started peeling off. Not wanting to come out and find the boat underwater... I bit the bullet and had a local gelcoat guy give me a "tune up".

So here is the big repair... also there were two hairline cracks running parallel to the trailer supports. He suggested grinding them down, laying a fiberglass patch and re-gelcoat.

So while they were at it there were three holes drilled in the gun whale from a previous owners attempt to mount something.

and some deep scratches from a previously mounted trolling motor.

They did a great job and matched the color about as close as you can get. (Fair warning to the A-types considering gelcoat repair: Its not perfect, in direct sunlight at an angle you can see the fade from one color to the next.)



In addition to the big stuff I had them fix several chips at the lower edge and they repaired all sorts of little stuff on the bottom of the boat.

The project was done over the period of a week with about 6 man-days of work divided by two people. It was a pretty big job, but now the bottom of the boat is sealed so hopefully it wont sink when its sleeping.



I'll shoot some after pictures of the repairs when I take it out of the water this weekend. And to answer my own budget question... My friend says BOAT stands for Bust Out Another Thousand... this fix was $900.