Spider Cracks - What to Do

[Rinkerguy]

I was washing the cockpit of the boat over the weekend and noticed a number of spider cracks in the gelcoat/fiberglass.

How do I go about repairing these?
Or at the least preventing these from getting worse?

[Dave R]

I am no expert, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express.

The cracks occur because the area has been flexed too much. This is an indication that it was poorly designed, poorly made, or over stressed, usually a combination of all three. Gelcoat is amazingly brittle and it shows. You can repair the gelcoat surface fairly easily but unless you address the three causes, the cracks will come back.

If you have access to the back of the part with cracks, you may be able to add some layers of resin and cloth to add ridgidity. You may be able to glass in some marine plywood or aluminum plate too. Any way you can thicken the area will increse the ridgidity with the square of thickness (double the thickness and it's 4 times stiffer), I think...

Google "gelcoat repair" when you are ready to repair the cracks.

[Rinkerguy]

Dave R
Thanks for the advise
the cracking is minor and around where the cooler insert is located, and in the step where you access the cabin. Both are accessible from behind as well, so I will attempt to stiffen the fiberglass while I repair the Gelcoat