You can do it!
Sure you can do it if you wanna! Here's how. The white MarineTex is good or you could use a "gelgoat paste" available from Hunter, which sets faster. This all depends on the size of the chip... I bet it's fairly small but looks HUGE! Take either a dremel tool with a tapered grinding bit, or some 100 grit sandpaper wrapped over your fingertip and bevel the edges of the defect cavity. Then mix your gelcoate paste or MarineTex according to instructions... Basically a small glob of the white stuff and a few drops of the liquid hardener for a small repair. Apply it leaving it slightly higher than the surrounding surface 'cause this stuff tends to shrink a bit.(if it's lower than the wurrounding surface after it hardens, just put in a second coat.) When hard, you'll sand it even with the surrounding surface, beginning with 220 grit sandpaper. Yes, you'll scuff up the pretty smooth gelcoat around the repair, but not to worry, as you're gonna fix that next. Using wet/dry sandpaper, lightly sand with a series of decreasing grits to smooth and begin to polish it. I like to use 400, 600 or 800 and finally for the shine, 1000 or 1200 if you're meticulous. Keep the process wet by diping the sandpaper in water as you work. finally polish it with some mildly abrasive polish/wax combination such as 3M one step fibreglass restorer/wax, and you'll never be able to find the damaged area. Of course, if the damage is in the non-skid it's a whole different ballgame. I'll give you some info on that if you need it... just email me at georgek2@earthlink.net. But non-skid is tricky. They do (as another post suggested) use a patterned plastic mat to make the pattern but I haven't been satisfied with the results of that one even when done by a "pro". Cheers.
