Can dilapidated GRP superstructure be refinished?

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NJMcK

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Having sold our last boat we are now looking for another. We hope to buy a cruising boat about 20 years old and have seen several Westerlys with superstructure gelcoat defects. The surfaces of cockpit coamings and coachroof sides have hairline black crazing lines. For example:


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Can anyone refer us to contractors able to deal with such defects? We’d like to have repairs carried out to a good standard. Is painting appropriate? Can the gelcoat be renewed? All useful advice will be gratefully received.
 
Yes it can be done. It is a labour intensive, time consuming, nasty job involving much elbow grease and lots or sandpaper, buffing compounds and the like. I'd work on £100+ / sq metre for refurbished gelcoat.

I have refinished 2 sailplanes. Totalling about 50 sq metres of gelcoat. Like is far far far too short!

I'd be tempted to sand back and refinish in a top quality 2 pack urethane paint. Future dings etc can be touched up easily.
 
I did think about posting on PBO but hoped that Scuttlebut might be better geared to those using contractors, rather than DIY input. I would have put the enquiry on both but understand multiple posting is disgracefully bad manners.
 
Depends where you are: Goodacres at Port Solent have always done an excellent GRP job for me, but they're not cheap. (Mark you, none of the GRP lot are). Worth asking them for their views.
 
Thank you Ian. I agree that life is too short, hence the intention to use a contractor.
 
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...Goodacres at Port Solent...

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Very useful, thanks. I will phone them next week.

The boat will be based in Pembrokeshire but I expect to have it trucked there so could well use a South Coast contractor.
 
Dickies of Bangor have an excellent reputation for this type of work, with an up-to-date paint shed and skilled labour. They are contractors to RNLI and the police, for example. I have seen some beautiful repaint jobs come out of their shed.

As has been said though, don't expect to pay a little!
 
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Dickies of Bangor...

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Thank you for this recommendation. Do you have any idea what mechanism(s) cause the deterioration pictured?
 
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Do you have any idea what mechanism(s) cause the deterioration pictured?

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Looks to me like the original gel coat has been almost removed by polishing / cutting, and the underlying lay-up is starting to show through. (2nd picture, particularly.)

If that's the case, then it's a candidate for paint - 2 pack polyurethane IMHO.

(And I'd be interested in how it can be 'easily touched up')

Andy
 
Having a Westerly myself, I have found several areas of deterioration. Most are mainly cosmetic, but a few were down to stress concentrations in the structure. Some of the cosmetic type are blamed (by boat repair contractors) on an over-thick gel coat, notably cracking on the toe rails and around the stanchion bases. Another obvious cause is local impact damage, showing as star cracks. Other areas are down to a very thin gel coat, which allows the underlying fibres to show through, notably on the cockpit bulkhead, and looking similar to your photo.

I usually use a Dremmel type tool to grind out small cracks when I find them and refill with Plastic Padding gel coat repair stuff. Not very time-consuming, but quite satisfying. Larger areas of damage I leave to the professionals, who also tackle the stress concentration that is the usual cause.. I have not yet tackled the thin gel coat areas and am not worried enough to be thinking of any repair.
 
I agree with misterg. Much of the gelcoat has been removed by abrasion and the underlying fibreglass is showing through. Abrasion like that can occur on corners, such as in your top photo, due to normal wear after years of use. The lower photo seems to suggest that the surface has been polished to within an inch of its life, using fairly abrasive compounds like Farecla, T-cut, etc.

I know a man who re-gelcoated his hull topsides, very successfully. However, he painted the coachroof with two-pack paint, as by that time he realised that doing it in gelcoat would be a horrendous job.
 
Thanks misterg, Wight_Dawn and vyv_cox. It looks like two-pack paint may be the way to go.

Presumably this type of repair work will become more commonplace as GRP boats get older, assuming of course that they are substantial and otherwise in good order.
 
Agree with everything others have said. Problem with deck (compared to hull) is that they are so fiddly to do properly - removal of fittings, compound shapes etc so they rarely get done unless somebody has the time to do it. Painting is the way to go, but will not be cheap and unless the boat is high value and you are going to keep it a long time hardly worth doing. That is probably why you see so many boats of this age and type in similar condition. As to whether it will become more popular in future will depend on whether people are prepared to spend on cosmetics (different if it is structural) when most boats need other expensive things like engines and sails replacing at intervals!

If you are buying through a broker ask them for a local recommendation or ask your surveyor, after all you will be paying the surveyor to advise you on the boat.
 
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If you are buying through a broker ask them for a local recommendation or ask your surveyor, after all you will be paying the surveyor to advise you on the boat.

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We will ask for local advice and recommendations. At this stage we are looking at overall costs. Some older examples of particular models are priced at about £20,000 less than later ones. As we intend to keep a boat for more than 10 years it may make sense to have some good quality refinishing done now.
 
Hi,

It looks to me like UV damage more than anything else. You can, as others have said, use a wet and dry sandpaper to remove the gelcoat and 'lose' some of the cracks, but they will return.

I know this because I had the same problem on my Westerly Fulmar after we'd spent several years in the Med/Caribbean. We did cut it back a couple of times, but in the end decided that painting the coachroof (where our problem was) using 2 pack paint was the answer.

A huge amount of work to remove everything including the windows etc, but the finished result is absolutely stunning. Indeed, my surveyor couldn't believe the standard of finish we'd achieved. Very satisfying!!

As I'm sure you are aware, the problem won't go away and, as I say above, repeated sanding only delays the inevitable. I did get a couple of prices for re-gelling the whole lot, but had fainted before I reached the fourth figure!! /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif So painting is was!

Good luck with whichever route you decide to go.
 
If you have homed in on a Westerly then probably worth getting in touch with the Owners Association and also Trafalgar Yacht Services in Fareham who specialise in service for the boats.
 
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It looks to me like UV damage more than anything else.

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That's what we thought it might be. I wonder if the problem is more pronounced in boats which have spent time in paticularly sunny places?

Thanks for the warning about fainting. I'll make sure I'm sitting down when speaking to possible contractors.
 
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...worth getting in touch with the Owners Association and also Trafalgar Yacht Services...

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We have spoken to David and Caroline Hardy. They were very helpful. We've also paid a year's sub to the WOA. The Yahoo group has a search facility but I haven't yet found much about refinishing duff GRP superstructure.
 
Some years ago I had a similar but worse problem on the deck of a (...ahem...) power boat I was responsible for. Lots of S Iberia sun caused it. Quite severe crazing. I used Perfection 709 2 pack paint with their thick 2 pack primer to fill in the cracks. Looked great the last ime I saw it 3 yrs after the job.
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