Fiberglass/Gelcoat question

[mtatum]

I've done a lot of searching and haven't really found the answer to my problem. Hopefully you guys can point me in the right direction.

Purchased an 89 Ranger 364V "fishable project" a couple years back. Not great shape, but not a dog either. The previous owner "wet sanded" the top cap to bring the shine back, but unfortunately I believe now he took a lot of gelcoat off at the same time. No clear left and a high percentage of the red flake is gone. Half of what is left has been silvered. Base gel is black. After a few months of owning, our great Texas sun starting doing it's work. Started getting thermal stress cracks. There were none when purchased. Mostly on top of the gunwales between the nose and the drivers console and on the back corners where the bilge vents are located. Front cracks are perpendicular to the center line. You can also hear the gel crack at times if you step on it. In the back it's the squiggley s cracks on the top surface. And to clarify the boat, since I've had it, has not been in rough water and only on small 100-200 acre lakes so very little WOT running.

So everything I've read about every other kind of gelcoat crack is I need to grind to the glass and build up from there. With these cracks up front I am thinking I need to remove the gel from the console to the nose since it is too brittle now. Lay a couple layers of new glass to make up for the removed gel plus add more reinforcement then fair, fill and finish?? I'm leaning towards a 2 part paint vs going back with gelcoat.

Am I thinking in the right direction?

[crank68]

My opinion....you don’t really know if the glass is cracked so you’ll have to grind each crack to see what damage you have before you can say what needs to be done.

[mtatum]

I am really hoping it's not into the glass. I can always grind the biggest out and see how deep it goes. With the shear number in close proximity handling each crack individually would be a loosing cause I believe. I am thinking all the gelcoat in front of the console needs to be removed to prevent future cracking. If that section of gelcoat is that brittle I'd hate to fix the individual cracks and refinish then later down the road the rest of the gelcoat that wasn't cracked in that section lets loose.