Houston Area? Rookie mistake

[Laura]

Hello!
New here! We purchased our (according to my SMART 2yr old daughter Mommy's boat) new/used first boat EVER back in June. Long story short, after going back and forth on where to go, we decided to go out to uncharted territory for us this past weekend. Galveston/West Bay **BAD IDEA**. I was not very comfortable, THANK GOD, and kind of glided/beached over an oyster reef and sucking up 4 oysters going 10mph. We pretty much said screw it, turned wide and carefully around, and left. Anywhoo, I went up to my boat Monday to reluctantly check the damage on the bottom, and the hull is not looking very shiny anymore. Looks to be just surface scratches nothing badly gouged. Just a LARGE area. Anyone have any recommendations around E/NE Houston on a place that is reputable to do boat work? I've done a little bit of searching and the places I've found either have not called me back requiring past inquires or are too far. OR is it something we should be able to handle with some (well a large quantity) of that Spectrum Gel coat and the other stuff needed?

Luckily everything else is fine, we took the boat to the river instead.

 

[Bruce]

Welcome Aboard!

Can you post pictures of the damage?

 

[Laura]

Thanks!

I don't have any right now. I'll be able to post some either tomorrow or Friday. We have the boat in a storage unit.

 

[itsdgm]

@Laura welcome aboard. That'd a bummer about the damage. Hopefully you didn't damage the pump or impeller too by sucking up those shells. Did you notice any cavitation? I don't have any real firsthand experience with repairing boat hulls, so I'll leave that advice to the experts. But hopefully you'll be able to get her all nice and new again without much effort.

 

[Glassman]

Thanks!

I don't have any right now. I'll be able to post some either tomorrow or Friday. We have the boat in a storage unit.

Great...pictures really do speak volumes about these types of issues. Aside from the hull, did you check your impellers for nicks and dings? Those oysters are dang hard!

 

[Laura]

Finally got back up to take pics. The impeller actually looks ok. Around the intake grate is where the damage is the worse. Of course my thrust vectors got pretty torn up as well (we already got that covered). But here they are!! I am going to say I'm probably going to have to leave it to the pros.

 

[Laura]

Annnnd this is what we pulled out of the clean out port.

 

[tdonoughue]

Owch. Looks like a couple of small spots through the gel coat, too. That is a large area. We should get @Glassman to comment. However, it appears that all the damage is to the gel only, so you may get off a lot easier.

Unfortunately, while I am in the Houston area, I have done all of my glass work myself (only very minor stuff) with help from this forum (which is great, and welcome btw..).

When you get her fixed up, come up to Lake Conroe. No oysters.

 

[mrlanemeyer]

Ouch.

 

[Laura]

LOL Yes! Well, we did leave and go right to the San Jacinto River to finish our day. Conroe is our next stop, eventually!

 

[Laura]

Ouch.

Yea, I still feel like it just happened. I should of listened to THE man. He wanted to go where we ended up. We wouldn't be dealing with this if we did. Ya live and learn!!! We just won't be doing THAT again!!

 

[Craig]

Annnnd this is what we pulled out of the clean out port. View attachment 12112

And no damage to your impeller?? Wow

 

[Bruce]

@Glassman please look at the pics.

On my phone it looks like mainly scratches in the gelcoat with a bubbled area where the gelcoat is completely removed.

 

[Laura]

And no damage to your impeller?? Wow

Yea... as far as I can tell from what I saw crawling under there today. It looks the same as it did a few weeks ago. I would of expected it to be cracked/bent some where?! But it's all intact perfectly. Don't know how!! It all happened very quick and I shut it off immediately after the initial grind, I don't know how far he reached into the clean out port, but maybe some were stuck in the intake grate before hitting the impeller? He was in pretty deep. LOL.