1997 Bluewater cracks in gelcoat

[520YOTA]

Heya,

I have a 1997 Bluewater Mirage that I've been slowly upgrading/repairing for the last 3 years while enjoying it simultaneously.

I've recently noticed a LOT of little cracks in the gelcoat all around the boat. Are these something to be concerned about? Boat does live under a nice cover but the AZ temps creep over 110 ever summer for months straight so perhaps these are just from the heat/dryness?

It's dark out, this is just a small example of the whole boat. There seem to be more where the wake tower mounts in the front.

 

[alldodge]

Its probably from a combination of heat and flex of the hull. The entry level boats like yours and my Rinker are not made as well as ones like, Cobalt, Formula

The wake tower puts some add stress and might need to be reinforced if cracks get worst

 

[Grub54891]

Just had one at the shop. it was a Trawler, had cracks like that above the rub rail but below the toe rail. The guy had it fixed in the past. It cracked again in the same manner. The repair before was just grind out the cracks and fill with something? and repaint. What our glass shop did was grind the entire area out, re-glass and fill and fair it out. Then repaint. You have to get to the root of the cracks for them to go away. Keep in mind this was a 40' trawler worth big money. expense was not an issue.
You can grind them out and fill with an epoxy/cabosil mix and gelcoat, hopefully they don't come back.

 

[jhande]

Just curious... is that an original finish or a redone?

I'm not a boat expert by any means but in my automotive experience it looks like a repaint.
I've seen problems with Corvette and truck cap paint jobs with smaller but similar cracks. The finish coat does not flex the same as the underlying fiberglass. If improper prep, hardener/amount (based on humidity & temp) can lead to what we used to call spider cracks.

 

[520YOTA]

This is factory gelcoat and no repairs, at least none that are obvious to me have been made. The boat was in original shape (interior, carpet, stereo , etc) when I purchased I 3 years ago. I've just been upgrading things as I go along.

It has had some cracks in the gelcoat when I purchased it. Mostly around all of the little "buttons" that the original mooring cover snapped into. But those cracks are now bigger, and there's a bunch all over the top of the boat. I'm assuming it's nothing structural, and if it is I'll probably use it until something catastrophic happens lol... cosmetically it doesn't bother me too much on a 1997, $6k boat but im just curious.

 

[jhande]

I'd keep an eye on it. It's probably due to weakened old fiberglass structure combined with the heat and flex as alldodge mentioned.