Gelcoat hairline cracks

[Solitaire]

I have a Catalina 34 Mark II hull #1801 launched in 2008 in Sydney Australia. For the last two years or so I've noticed hairline cracks developing in the deck gelcoat but not in the nonslip areas (see attached photo).  I've been applying polish to these areas. There doesn't seem to any water penetration.

The original owner had the boat on a marina with covers for seven years. I have owned the boat on a swing mooring for nine years with no cover.

There doesn't seem to have been any discussion of this problem for some years. As far as I can tell, it appears my problem may be cosmetic rather than needing repairs (rub back of cracks and new coat of gelcoat which would be quite expensive).

Any comments?

[Gulfsailor]

Ahoy Derek!

We had the same type of issue on our last boat (Ericson 32-200) that we owned for 12 years. In our case it was purely cosmetic and didn't hurt us when we sold her (as we got our full asking price).

By the way, when we were considering a C34 we found a video of your boat that was produced by the broker 9 years ago on YouTube. Her beautiful lines helped close us on buying ours.

Rick

[scgunner]

Derek,

The reason the topic doesn't because it's mainly cosmetic rarely structural. "Spider webs" are just nature of the beast when it comes to most fiberglass construction. Cars as well as boats, I've seen a $100,000+ sixties Corvette with spider webs that he wouldn't remove for fear of effecting the originally. If it's something you find can't you can't live with you can grind the deck down to fiberglass and apply a new gelcoat but of course talking about LOTS of time and money and it's quite likely they will reappear sometime down the road. Or, like me, you can just think of it as patina!

[Jim Hardesty]

the reason the topic doesn't because it's mainly cosmetic rarely structural. "Spider webs" are just nature of the beast when it comes to most fiberglass construction.

I agree, some gelcoat is flexible some not so much.  Don't think the boat manufactures have much control over the product (gelcoat).  It all looks good from the factory.  Here is a fix that a club member uses.  He uses it on some noticeable spider cracks, it looks good for a couple of seasons and is easy to do and redo. May be worth a try.

https://magicezy.com/collections/marine/products/magicezy-hairline-fix?variant=40293538955471

[Solitaire]

Many thanks to you all for your comments.

If the cracks are purely cosmetic, I'm inclined to just keep the polish up to them and that's it. Is that what other owners with this problem are doing?

As for the Magicezy suggestion, I would be worried about colour matching but more so, I've too many cracks. However I see they have a filler for small accidents, so that is useful info. Magicezy have a store here in Australia, so easy to get the product.

Thanks again,
Derek

[scgunner]

Jim,

I'm always leery of any product with word "Magic" in the title. Color matching is always a problem (especially white) and I found results at best are not as bad as it was. And as widespread as the spider webbing is in Derek's case not very practical.

[Ron Hill]

Derek : Let us know how that "Magic craze" works!!

A thought

[Noah]

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