B.O.A.T. Gel Coat Repair

They say B.O.A.T stands for Bust Out Another Thousand... One of the previous owners of our Dorsett evidently ran over a rock and the result was a pretty nice scrape of the gel coat on the bottom of the boat.

 

In addition there were some scrapes all the way through the gel coat  at the lower edge of the transom. Since I leave the boat in the water for 3-4 days at a time, to seal the fiberglass I went ahead and did the same repair on the transom using a little two-part marine resin. 

Unfortunately, I found that the salt was removing both fixes as when I would pull the boat out and clean it the resin was flaking off. I was concerned this would eventually fail and the fiberglass would begin to soak up water, delaminate and in my mind that led to the boat sinking.

To fix this I decided to bite the bullet and have a professional repair the gel coat. I was fortunate to find Mel. He is a local mobile boat gel coat repair technician and he and his helper George came out and did a great job fixing the scars.

Here's the big fixes. Mel also found two hairline cracks in the gel coat parallel to the trailer supports. These cracks were ground out. New glass was placed across the area and filler and gel coated.

  

For some reason, someone drilled three holes in the gun whale these were also filled and gel coated.

Scars and chips on the splash well from a trolling motor were sanded filled and gel coated.

In addition to the big stuff Mel fixed a couple of chips on the lower edge of the side and cleaned up a whole bunch of scratches on the bottom of the boat. George spent two days on his back just sanding the bottom of the boat!

Mel did a great job at matching the 50 year old / faded color. The repairs are  barely visible unless you are in direct sun light, looking on an angle and you know what to look for. In my book that's a great job.

  

I feel a lot better now as the bottom of the boat is properly sealed. I just didn't want to come out to the dock one morning and see the boat under water.

This fix was $900... Bust out another thousand.