In my experience, when there is displacement of the gel coat (ie, you can feel the crack when dragging your finger across), then the glass underneath is compromised, as the damaged glass prevents the gel coat from returning to it's original location.
If left unrepaired, the hull is likely weakened and water ingress will further affect it's integrity once it's back in the water.
Take an angle grinder and taper it off, to see what's what. The repair is relatively simple and only takes a few hours...
1) Grind it down to where there is no crack in the glass, From about 1" from any edges of clean glass, taper out to about 8".
2) Take a sheet of plastic, overlay it, use a marker to template your glass
3) Cut your glass, you're probably looking at 3-5 layers if it's where I think it is. Proposed layup : biaxial, biaxial at 90 degree to the first, woven roving, biaxial, chop strand mat.
4) The last layer should be chopped strand mat, use peel ply on top of the last coat (easier to sand smooth and won't show through the gel coat like cloth woul
5) Sand if require to match hull contours (use a 1 yard straight edge to read the contours), A flexible straight edge is also useful to bend around and find high spots.
6) 2-3 coats of gel coat (colour is not critical, as it won't be seen), last coat waxed
7) Wet sand
8) Polish
8) Interprotect 2000E
9) Bottom paint
Good as new.
Probably 8-12 hrs of work, tops, depending on your experience. About $150 in materials, plus supplies (rollers, squeegee, mixing pots, brushes, etc...)
If the fiberglass is pink/red on the inside of the hull, your boat is likely made of vinylester. This is a superiour product to polyester resin, as it's more waterproof. But for such a small repair and with Interprotect on the outside, polyester resin will do fine.
Given where you are and ice fishing is just around the corner, unless you can get the boat inside, I'd wait to April to make the repair. Then hord that part of the boat so that you can keep it warm (with your ice fishing hut propane heater
) while the layers cure.
Your challenge will be where to put the boat? You might be able to keep it on the trailer if you can prop up bulkheads ahead and aft of the repair area, so that you can remove that pad, that would still leave parts of the trailer likely in your way to make an easy repair. If you don't have the clearance to remove the pad, you'll likely have to crane it off the trailer and put it on stands to effect the repair. If it was me, I'd get it craned off and placed on jacks.
the boat
