Need advise. Found crack on rear deck floor

[RussKoul]

So I finally bought a 2000 2520xl and am really excited about this years fishing season. I pressure washed and scrubbed down the boat this weekend. Once everything dried I noticed a crack in the non skid deck about 3 inches long. Just wanted to know if anyone has a solution or a material I can use to repair this crack.

Thanks in advanced.

 

[Megabyte]

Best bet is to post a photo or two so we can see what you are dealing with.
Having said that, my guess is that crack is superficial.
I have a bunch of them on my boat and it's simply a stress crack in the gelcoat covering which is more brittle than the underlying fiberglass.
Nothing to be concerned about.

 

[akholmes]

Post some pics. Can you fit your finger nail in the cracks?
Don't assume they're cosmetic only and move on!! I made that mistake.

 

[RussKoul]

Will take some pics and post this afternoon. Don't want to let a little thing turn out to be a huge problem.

 

[RussKoul]

Trying to post pics. How can I post a pic from my iPad. Having a hard time.

 

[shawnee83]

My way around the resizing problem is to email the photos to myself from my iPhone. For whatever reason from the phone it will ask you what size to email the pic and I select medium. When it come in my email, I used my iPad to access the email and I then save the pic to the iPad.

 

[RussKoul]

Hope this works.

 

[RussKoul]

What do we think.

 

[shawnee83]

I'm not liking that. You need to fix it for sure. At the very minimum, I would put some 5200 over it and get it sealed. To fix it correctly, I will leave to others here on CP who are much more capable than myself. The important thing is that you have hopefully caught it soon enough that you just need to do a surface repair and you don't have any rot under it. Let's see what the rest of the guys have to say. Don't freak out, it can be fixed realitvly easily as long as the deck under is solid.

 

[RussKoul]

Just a thought, would a quick and permanent fix be to cut out crack and install a round access hatch. Food for thought.

 

[windknotnc]

An access hatch is not a good solution. Honestly a hatch is a bigger risk for future wter intrusion and most likely there is a stringer somewhere under the space where the cutout for a hatch would be. I would lightly grind out the crack, feathering out a few inches. Depending on how deep and whether in goes through the glass layer would dictate how i repair. This doesn't look like a big problem. The biggest issue you will have is matching the gelcoat and texture of the nonskid to the surrounding deck.

 

[Sully]

I have a few of those on the deck
I took a Stanley blade knife cut down on a 45 just down and wide enough to see in the crack not cutting into the clear resin
Washed out with acetone and saw the ones I had were just in the gelcoat
I mixed some Parker gelcoat with hardener and filled a small syringe and followed the crack with the point
It filled proud of the crack and dried close to level scraped flat with a window scraper razor and now Ill just see if it comes back
But its sealed up for sure now
I don't want to do more then I need to get into but I did want to address it!

 

[RussKoul]

Thanks for the input guys. I have a guy coming to check it out. I believe it's only a crack from something being dropped on the deck. I will def address it before it gets worse. I will post my findings and repair pics when all is said and done.

Thanks again