Scraped Bottom at Lake, How Bad? How Much?

[Guitarjesus]

I parked my truck after unloading the boat into the water and my daughter got frazzled and the front of the boat scraped concrete at the launch ramp. The damage is about a foot or so long. Does anyone know roughly how much I'm looking at to get it fixed and until I am able to is my boat lake worthy to currently use? Huge picture so it looks bigger than it is.

 

[Dave burke]

It’s hard to tell from the picture but it looks to me like you’ve scraped through the gel coat and are into the fibreglass. So I’d be very careful about using the boat if I were you. If you really need to use it, take it for a test run and then pull it out of the water and see how much comes out.

Sorry, I have no idea how much it would cost to repair but if I were you I’d make sure the shop where I took it has lots of experience with hull repairs.

Hopefully you’re hear from others that have had to repair fibreglass. I’ve been lucky so far, knock on wood.

 

[HangOutdoors]

You could fix it yourself and then I would put a keel guard all the way down. The fix doesn't need to be perfect since it would be covered with the keel guard. Plus by the looks of it you have some other previous gouges and scratches. The keel guard would eliminate that moving forward.

 

[tdonoughue]

Yes, the glass is definitely impacted here. That will need to be ground down and re-laid. Good news for your daughter is that it looks like the boat had been beached a number of times, which wore down the gelcoat. So when she hit the concrete, at the very least that gelcoat was very, very thin (may have been gone).

I would take this one to a pro. Problem with impacted glass is that it is hard to tell without beginning to grind whether it is impacted all the way through or not. Basically you need to grind until you find solid glass (or daylight from the other side). If you find daylight, you need to go inside the boat and re-lay from that direction in order to do it right. That's a big job (usually need to cut through the ski locker or something like that to get access). Definitely beyond DIY in my book.

Now, all of that said, I would be surprised if this one is through-and-through, given the look. But no way to tell without grinding. If you start grinding and find you are over your head (or grind too much accidentally and break through), you have made a potentially bigger problem. Thus the pro recommendation.

I do agree that you don't need the gelcoat perfect on the repair; you can cover with a keel guard. But, if you are going to a pro anyway, just have them do it right. Then put a keel guard on if you are going to beach your boat at all. I would expect probably $2k on this repair. More if it goes all the way through; less if they don't need to lay any new glass (not likely, but could happen).

 

[scokill]

That area of the scrape is extremely thick fiberglass...ask me how I know sometime. I wouldn't be worried at all about that aspect. However, it does need a repair. Patch paste would probably work well and you could make it somewhat perfect if you were handy. If you are not handy then easy job for pro. Almost anything is $500-$1,000 min, so I would expect inbetween that and to the $2K referenced above. Only way to find out is to get an estimate. I've found that anything to do with boat work is likely a long wait and wouldn't be surprised if done for the season if you went the pro route.

 

[Guitarjesus]

That area of the scrape is extremely thick fiberglass...ask me how I know sometime. I wouldn't be worried at all about that aspect. However, it does need a repair. Patch paste would probably work well and you could make it somewhat perfect if you were handy. If you are not handy then easy job for pro. Almost anything is $500-$1,000 min, so I would expect inbetween that and to the $2K referenced above. Only way to find out is to get an estimate. I've found that anything to do with boat work is likely a long wait and wouldn't be surprised if done for the season if you went the pro route.

I've got 2 quotes so far. Luckily I'm only an hour from the ocean and minutes from 5 lakes so plenty of repair places.

One quote is $2500. That is repairing everything from the 2nd strake out from the keel, and matching paint all the way to the back of the boat, then installing matching keel guard.

The other is $1500, but not matching paint, and not fixing the scratching from beaching the boat. A grand is a grand, but for basically a new boat bottom, it sounds like a better deal.

Please chime in with any thoughts. I had two lake trips planned with friends on different days. Both just one day on the water, a few hours each time to my local lake. Both repair places said I'm totally good to be on the water, especially with the Southern California heat, the fiberglass will dry quick and won't have any separation issues.

Also a better pic:

 

[Crob83]

I would go the $2500 route for full repair as you said, what's another 1k at that point. Plus you will have a Keel guard and be ready to roll right out of the gates

 

[scokill]

I've got 2 quotes so far. Luckily I'm only an hour from the ocean and minutes from 5 lakes so plenty of repair places.

One quote is $2500. That is repairing everything from the 2nd strake out from the keel, and matching paint all the way to the back of the boat, then installing matching keel guard.

The other is $1500, but not matching paint, and not fixing the scratching from beaching the boat. A grand is a grand, but for basically a new boat bottom, it sounds like a better deal.

Please chime in with any thoughts. I had two lake trips planned with friends on different days. Both just one day on the water, a few hours each time to my local lake. Both repair places said I'm totally good to be on the water, especially with the Southern California heat, the fiberglass will dry quick and won't have any separation issues.

Also a better pic:

View attachment 182543

Gotta do what you gotta do.

 

[tdonoughue]

Agree, I would go with the $2500 one. And fully agree you are ok for the water with that. No wood in that part of the fiberglass in any year (which is why people say don't get it wet when gelcoat damaged--because water can migrate to the wood and cause rot; our boats have very little wood, mostly toward the aft in certain years).