Maxi Yacht gel-coat cracking on coach roof

[winchservicing]

One for the boat builder experts.

A customer of mine has up-graded his 2x 16 winches on the coach roof to self-tailing. While fitting the new winches, I noticed that there were some thin stress cracks in the gel-coat, Aft of the winches (about 2 inches long) on both sides of the boat. No sign of any cracks below deck.

I also noticed that by putting a winch handle in and pulling, I could fell the deck/coach-roof flexing. The thickness of the glass was about 10mm-ish. Is this enough?

The boat is 8 years old and I assume these have been there since new-fitted by Maxi Yachts for halyards and reefing lines.

I haven’t mentioned this to the customer as yet, as I don’t want to alarm him unnecessarily. I’m not an expert on deck thickness. So I thought I would post this for some expert advice.

Has any other Maxi owner had similar problems?

Thanks in advance!
Cliff.

 

[Talulah]

These are fairly light weight winches. You shouldn't be able to feel the coach roof flexing. I suspect he may be aware of it flexing already and so you should bring it up anyway. He may be waiting to see if you raise it as an issue.

 

[Abigail]

We have a 26 year old Maxi 120. Being that age, all the lay up is really thick. We did find some flexing and softness in the aft deck which we have remedied by additional glassing and gelling on the underside (ie on the ceiling of the aft cabin.) Unlike most Maxi owners, we are not racers, and the 120 is a cruiser, so we are not bothered about the little extra weight.

We think that the owner should get an expert to have a look. If the coach roof is flexing under relatively light pressure, the owner needs to ask about the situation where the winches are under load. I am sure that Maxi themselves would be happy to advise as well.

HTH