GRP repairs costs

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chrismurphy

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Hi all
I'm new to this forum and to sailing. I"m about to buy my first boat, I've seen one I like but it has a tennis ball sized dent in the bow, it looks like it's hit a pontoon.
Can anyone give me guide as to how much it would cost to repair?
If it's just the Gel Coat I'm told maybe around £600.
If there's been some delamination how much more could that cost.

Obviously I know it's impossible to guess this sort of thing, just looking for guidance: + £200 / + £2000?

Thanks in advance
 
An 'invisible' repair by a boatyard will be silly money, so silly that it is almost impossible to estimate. Even worse if it has to be lifted out to do it. Some of them tend to charge for the overall rather than the working time.
A repair that is hard to see is not a difficult diy job if you can afford around £50-100 for materials and several half days at reasonable temperatures. The structural bit is relatively easy using West epoxy, and their comprehensive instructions, the tricky bit is applying and fairing gelcoat to make it look right but lots of us have taught ourselves to do that. Time and patience with progressively smoother abrasives. With GRP you can not do any real harm and sometimes I do a temporary repair which is left for months to be finished cosmetically.
 
Another option: if it's in the area of the bow which often gets chipped by the anchor, you might consider covering the damage with protector made of stainless sheet. Obviously the ding would need to be made structurally sound, but that's cheap and easy enough if it doesn't have to look good.
 
Quandry, Macd, thanks

I was a cabinet maker in a former life so I'm sure I'd be up to the repair myself.
I was thinking I'd put one of those rubber things over it - protection and hiding the damage.

Seems like no-one is too scared of this so I'll take a punt. I'm getting it surveyed too so that'll flag any structural damage.

Is it safe to take on the water with a crack? I've read a bit about osmosis blisters, wondered if this is likely to affect it in a similar way? ie, can the repair wait for a bit?
 
Don't read too much about osmosis or you'll never buy a grp boat, most boats over 10 years old have it to some degree and none have ever sunk from it, it's a good scare story to extract money from daft folk but in the real world unless riddled with huge blisters it's not worth worrying about.
As said on the OP if you can put a plate over the damage to the bow the repair is fairly cheap and easy behind it as long as you can get to the inside ok.
 
Be aware that a pontoon collision will not just damage gelcoat at the point of impact - the GRP around the bow will probably delaminate and require a substantial area to be cut out and re-faired - with lifts, closer to your upper guestimate IMHO. Tapping the hull around the impact point may give you some idea of the extent of the damage.
 
I think it depends where you are.
Last time I dealt with a skilled pro GRP repairer, it was in the region of £45 per hour. That was for a boat already on a hardstanding with good access.
Often ou will pay more because the marina takes a cut.
The problem is getting quotes from tradesmen when you don't even own the boat yet and they are busy with work for people wanting to launch by Easter.
 
Be wary about any delamination as the bow is part of the structure taking the tension of the forestay. It will be fixable, but will depend if there or how extensive any delamination is. If it is just a gel coat chip, then it will be easy to fill but difficult to match the colour. Look at using epoxy to repair any damaged fiberglass. http://www.westsystem.com/wp-content/uploads/Fiberglass-Manual-2015.pdf For gel coat matching, search YouTube as there are plenty of videos on how to colour match.

I probably know more about the Feeling 286 than most other forum members as I bought one new when they first were introduced.
 
Quiddle said:
Be aware that a pontoon collision will not just damage gelcoat at the point of impact - the GRP around the bow will probably delaminate and require a substantial area to be cut out and re-faired - with lifts, closer to your upper guestimate IMHO. Tapping the hull around the impact point may give you some idea of the extent of the damage.
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Good point, depending on the speed of impact. Relatively small surface deformations can hide explosive delamination of the interior skin. Not always easy to see at the point of the bow, but the OP's surveyor should have checked.
 
The described damage should be fairly easy to fix DIY. You would need the boat out of the water and you need to be able to repair it over quite a few days as you build up resin then wait for it to harden before adding more layers to get the right profile on outside. You also need some warmth for the repair if done in winter. Be aware that the best fix is epoxy which must be painted after repair. This will probably mean repaint the whole hull to get same colour.
I would suggest that you try your luck with a deduction of 500 squid or so (for repair) and see how you go. Offer more if you really wan the boat. olewill
 
Take a photo and post it and see if you can get one of the inside as well.

Not a difficult repair normally, the hardest bit usually is getting a decent colour match.
Material costs are negligible, maybe £10 - £15.
Your cost will be down to the number of hours spent on it.
That said it shouldn't take more than a day to sort, so up here you'd be looking at £200 to £250 plus vat

If the impact was heavy I'd expect to see some gel cracking and crazing which will radiate from the impact point.
If so we could be talking about a couple or three days to sort.
If damage to the inside then access can be an issue with boats with fine bows and anchor lockers etc

Your pre purchase survey should pick it up and a chat with the surveyor should give you a better idea.
 
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The access to the bow is good from the anchor locker (no grp liner). The bow is a rounded shape, not fine, so easy to lay up if needed.

The problem will be colour matching the grey gel coat and repair to any of the side decals which are probably no longer available.
 
macd said:
Your local sign-making shop can probably assist. There's scarcely any such thing as an 'obsolete' decal these days.
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The decals are colour printed flags, but the main stripes were painted - not vinyl. How do I know? Damage to my own Feeling 286 shortly after build in the 1987 hurricane. Both were a major problem during the repair.
 
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