Boat broke mooring- professional fibreglasser needed?

[Mr fishy]

Hello all, my boat broke it's mooring in lyme regis during last nights storm I was unaware until 9pm today. It was on the pontoons outside the harbour but an easterleigh storm hit last night.

Does any know a fibreglasser who could repair this to a decent standard and possibly quote a price?

I'm located in Bristol would prefer to be somewhat local

Here is the picture I took on the slipway

 

[rafiki_]

You could try Wayne at Gelbrite. He is superb on any bodywork.

 

[Javelin]

Just done a very similar repair to this but on a Sealine T50, where it clobbered the seawall at 5 knots.

The damage seen on the picky looks to be pretty straight forward and it looks worse than it actually is.
Though I imagine there's quite a lot of gel cracking and crazing to be sorted as well.

I'm in Suffolk so way out of your area but happy for you to bounce any questions you may have on how to fix it or to just cast an eye over any quote you get.

The structural repair can be done in a couple of days.
Given good access inside to the damaged area it's a viable DIY job as well with a bit of guidance.
Material costs are low - Probably around £100 to 150 including resin, mat, gel coat, sanding disc's etc

Getting it to look like new takes much longer.......

 

[Mr fishy]

Thanks for the responses and the price for materials, what kind of price per hour or for the job in total would anyone estimate,

Thanks

 

[STEVEDUNSTABLE]

Hi mr fishy...sorry to see your damage and im afraid I can offer nothing to help your probs..SO......IM SORRY FOR THE THREAD DRIFT BUT ...ive not been to Lyme Regis for a couple of years and last time I was there, I don't recall ANY pontoons outside the harbour wall... is this a recent thing ? permanent or temp ? seasonal? etc etc THANKS..

 

[rafiki_]

Thanks for the responses and the price for materials, what kind of price per hour or for the job in total would anyone estimate,

Thanks

Give Wayne a call. You will find his number if you google Gelbrite.

 

[Javelin]

Yard hourly rate varies a lot.
I think I'm charged out at £27 per hour but I know other yards over this way are as much as £50

The trick is to do as much of the donkey work as possible.
Stripping the headlining, covering everything or removing everything from inside, (there will be a lot of dust created)
Cutting and grinding the loose stuff away all take longer than you think.

The finish takes the longest time.
Once the gel coat has been applied in a number of coats with a decent colour match the time sink really begins.
I sand down first with 240 grit to lose the brush/roller marks.
I scribble all over the repair with a permanent marker and then sand it off using 600 g wet n dry.
Then repeat the process with 1000g then 1500g and finish with 2000g
Then I cut using a cutting compound and polish.

So depending on the desired finish the whole job can be done in 10 hours or over 40.

 

[rafiki_]

Mr Fishy, why aren't you claiming off your insurance?

 

[Mr fishy]

Hi mr fishy...sorry to see your damage and im afraid I can offer nothing to help your probs..SO......IM SORRY FOR THE THREAD DRIFT BUT ...ive not been to Lyme Regis for a couple of years and last time I was there, I don't recall ANY pontoons outside the harbour wall... is this a recent thing ? permanent or temp ? seasonal? etc etc THANKS..

I believe the pontoons are seasonal only once winter comes I believe they are removed. I think in the last few years they have been added

 

[Mr fishy]

Taken some more photo's tonight, will hopefully manage to call some people on monday or tackle the job myself
I'm not 100% sure how hard it is or isn't so any advice like Javelins is great to me.

If i did attempt to do myself how would i build the "lip" back up and be able to match the gel coat colour?

Thanks

 

[Javelin]

The lip is there so the manufacturer can join the hull and deck easily.
They hide the join with the rubber which also serves as fendering to some extent.

Can you take a couple of photo's from inside as if I was repairing it I would probably glass the hull/deck join on the inside.
Simple process of grinding clean the glass on the inside and glassing the hull deck together with strips 450g mat around 4 to 5" wide.
Minimum of 5 layers but I'd probably go 8 to 10.

To fix the external lip I'd get a length of timber, batten with the same or slightly wider than the lip and secure it with clamps/rope or even drill and screw it to the hull under the existing lip.
The top edge of the timber I'd stick breaker tape or you can use high quality masking tape.
Essentially you will be laying up on it so you will need to break it away once the glass has gone off.

Gel match is a bit of an art but start with a base of White gel coat,
Sitting here its difficult to tell but normally I'd add a tiny bit of yellow.
Go to http://boatworkstoday.com/ and there;s a video on here on grp repairs and h covers gel matching pretty well along with other useful stuff.
A good teacher

 

[P4Paul]

My 2P's worth.

you need to ensure the repair is substantial to avoid the stresses from a good skier/wakeboarder opening the hull joint back up. Not a huge repair to undertake but you certainly need strip out the interior to fully assess the damage and cut away any damaged and delaminated GRP.

Making the repair invisible will take time, talent and a wallet full of cash and even then I expect you will see it ghost back in a couple of years time.

Personally I would look for a cost effective professional GRP repair and then rather than pay for the time it takes to make a perfect colour matched repair, I would spend my money on a whole boat wrap or paint spray.

Just my opinion. Whatever you chose to do, I hope it gets sorted quickly and you get back on the water ASAP.

 

[Gwylan]

Look for GelCoat Jo works around Portishead. AKA Jo Line..
Recommend her.

 

[itchenseadog]

Not a diy job if you are not familiar with gelcoat matching and glasswork. I have seen many diy repairs which initially dont look too bad, but a year or two down the line disparities in the gelcoat really start to show. Its cheaper in the long run to get it professionally repaired. Any surveyor worth his salt will pick up and question a diy repair during a purchase survey. Claim on your insurance and get it done properly, thats what insurance is for!

 

[Mr fishy]

Not a diy job if you are not familiar with gelcoat matching and glasswork. I have seen many diy repairs which initially dont look too bad, but a year or two down the line disparities in the gelcoat really start to show. Its cheaper in the long run to get it professionally repaired. Any surveyor worth his salt will pick up and question a diy repair during a purchase survey. Claim on your insurance and get it done properly, thats what insurance is for!

I'm only covered by 3rd party insurance i'm not sure if i can even make a claim as i Believe i'm only protected if i did damage to someone else's boat etc but will ring them monday to check. hence the reason of going down this route, i'm still not sure if i will attempt to do it or not. I will ring some local grp repairers on Monday morning to see if they can quote a price.

Gwylan- thanks for recommendation I may ring Jo tomorrow depending on the others.

thanks

 

[Mr fishy]

Hello all, update on the topic, I got quoted prices roughly from 1500-2k from the pictures emailed to different people and i didn't want to spend that boat was covered by third party insurance only.

So I decided to tackle the damage my self, so i bought all the stuff recommended by a user on here, thanks!

I have put about 4 evenings work in so far and managed to glass all of the inside about 7 layers of matting where the hull separated and managed to build the lip up

Here are the pictures i took earlier.

still have plenty of sanding and then gel coatings and sanding etc to do but hopefully i'll be able to use the boat this summer

 

[rafiki_]

Yep, well done Mr F, the repair is coming along nicely.

 

[Javelin]

Well done indeed.
How much did the materials come too in the end out of interest?
Not bought small quantities for a while so lost touch on small project costs.

looks like you'll need a fair bit of yellow in the white to get a colour match if required.
When blending in, use 40 grit in the imediate repair area, 80 in the surrounding area and 240 on the blending area.
The gell will fill the scratches and when you sand back the blending area will sand back translucent helping you to taper the repair.
Apply the gell in thin layers, don't be tempted to dump a lot it one go as the chances are you'll get air bubbles inside the gell which will appear when you sand back.

Normally I apply 4 thin coats of gell coat and then another but this one I add wax - this usually gives enough thickness to sand and then cut back to a good finish.

Below are photos of a similar repair I did to a sealine t50 a couple of weeks ago,
In this case the damage was worse than it looks as the deck had broken away from the hull fo around 8ft so it all had to be cut away and re-glassed.
Getting access inside was ruled out so it all had to be done from the outside which complicated things slightly.

 

[Mr fishy]

Well done indeed.
How much did the materials come too in the end out of interest?
Not bought small quantities for a while so lost touch on small project costs.

looks like you'll need a fair bit of yellow in the white to get a colour match if required.
When blending in, use 40 grit in the imediate repair area, 80 in the surrounding area and 240 on the blending area.
The gell will fill the scratches and when you sand back the blending area will sand back translucent helping you to taper the repair.
Apply the gell in thin layers, don't be tempted to dump a lot it one go as the chances are you'll get air bubbles inside the gell which will appear when you sand back.

Normally I apply 4 thin coats of gell coat and then another but this one I add wax - this usually gives enough thickness to sand and then cut back to a good finish.

Below are photos of a similar repair I did to a sealine t50 a couple of weeks ago,
In this case the damage was worse than it looks as the deck had broken away from the hull fo around 8ft so it all had to be cut away and re-glassed.
Getting access inside was ruled out so it all had to be done from the outside which complicated things slightly.

very nice work, in materials it cost around £120 but I overbought just incase really, Still have loads of matting left and still 5kg of resin unopened still and loads of gel coat will probably make something with it like a bait tray or something for fishing.

I didn't want a perfect finish as i knew i would never get it, but after working on it most of the day today heres what i got-

also the bow lip was crushed in so i ground it down and filled in with fibreglass still need to sand down and paint it up haven't done that yet

all I have to do now is to buy a rubbing strake which i will inquire about tomorrow around a few places.

 

[Mr fishy]

Update, bought the rubber from bridge rubber great service and made it to fit perfectly A+ recommend them

Just put it on earylier to see what it looked like-

I will be bolting it down at some point over the week and then job done!

Thanks Javelin for all the help you gave, helped me tons ! cheers