Gelcoat cracks in hull????

[JDTUGS]

I am looking at a 73-F32 during my inspection I noticed curved cracks in the hulls gelcoat right at the end of the house right around the quater. on both sides same area.Has anyone seen this in other boats. Deck is solid fore n aft. Thinking it may be from the house shifting while underway or from the fenders. Any insight would be helpful.

[TADTOOMUCH]

have you inspected the stringers in the boat. check up inside the limber holes that are everywhere in the stringers. They were not covered with fiberglass and easily rotted in many older f-32's Without this support the hull can flex a lot and cause this damage.

[obeejr]

I have the same thing on the port side of my '90. Coupled with other dings and scrapes on that side, I think my gelcoat cracks were caused by the hull banging up against the fenders and dock while the previous owner had her. The vertical area of the hull aft of the center is going to be more suseptable to that than the forward hull, where the outward curve makes the hull stiffer and more difficult to flex in and out.

[JDTUGS]

I hope to get on it tomorrow and check into the stringers. It looks like it was caused by fenders since the cracks are curved. Maybe caused during a rafting of several boats. Just wanted to see if anyone else heard of this problem.

Thanks Guys...

[wowzer52]

mine cracked from picking it out of the water with a sling

[cuppa]

What year was the boat that got damaged by the sling? is this a common problem?

[wowzer52]

1975 F-32, To get the boat to balance in the sling I had to put the forward sling just aft of the first galley window and the rear sling just in front of the tank vents. the first pick I wasn't paying attention, but the second time I picked the boat to pull a prop I noticed all four places were squashing in slightly creating cracks in the gelcoat in those four places. The craddle we were using wasn't wide enough to distribute the side pressure evenly so I was able to use small blocking in the different areas of the sling to help the situation, but the damage was done. The cracks won't hurt anything as long as they are sealed, but I am now aware of the thin fiberglass in some areas. I have also noticed that the bottom of my hull between the stringers is also thin and by the information I have gotten on this forum and different boat yards I am not too worried about it as long as the stringers are strong enough to keep the engines, shafts, logs and struts in line without too much flex I'll be ok. That means no jumping ten foot breakers and landing hard or running over logs and deadheads and make sure I have at least three bilge pumps just in case I do wack something really hard, but thats true with all boats.