Crazed Gelcoat Deck - 23' Lancer

[suesailor]

The deck on "Cheers" has really suffered through the years. The original white gelcoat is crazed wherever the deck can flex. The right way to fix it would be to grind off all the gelcoat, reinforce from underneath where necessary, and do an extensive fairing with epoxy primer coats and gelcoat.

We would love to hear from anybody who has tackled this job and achieved a good result - maybe not show quality but at least acceptable. We call that a "Ten Foot Job". From ten feet away it looks good to us.

Recommendations for coatings or treatments or methods would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Lon & Susie in Sausalito

[commander3519]

No magic trick to make it easy and you pretty much said all that needed to be done. Grind, fill,sand, ............ Awlfair then high build primer then finish primer. Sand, sand, sand. Longboard if needed. Then paint of course.

Underneath is the easy part. Just find the weak areas and use 1/2 of cardboard tube covered in glass to create a cross x support. Light, simple and strong.

[Paul P]

It is actually not uncommon to pop the top part of the deck on these "shoebox design boats" and restore everything, re-install, etc. Happens all the time, have a ton of photos showing various projects under way. You pretty much outlined the tasks at hand, grind out the crazed areas, fill properly, sand with a flat block to get everything back to nice and flat, prime, sand, prime again, sand again, and then coat with an approved variety of paints including Awlgrip, Interlux Perfection-II, or equal. When they're finished up they look stunning.

There are MANY of these boats undergoing extensive restorations now, and I suspect we will see more and more of this in the future.

Here is an example of an early 23 Lancer that was brought back to show quality.........





Thanks to my friend, Eric, for the photos.

regards,

Paul

[Paul P]

Here are a couple more photos showing what can be done.









This particular early series 23 is the outdrive (Transdrive) model, (the one I am restoring now is an inboard model). The original motor on the one in the photo was shot, so my buddy Eric got a rebuilt long-block for around $1500 to $1800 and did the replacement with good results. The SBC motors are THE lowest cost marine motor you can find to work on, and this fact makes these fiberglass classic boats a lot more cost effective to work on. If you have something more exotic like a 427 you could easily be paying 2X or 3X or potentially 5X or more for a rebuild.

As a tip to anyone doing a SBC longblock replacement, be sure you specify (marine) "truck cylinder heads" in order to get the drilled and tapped bosses needed to install marine equipment. Eric got his motor and discovered they sent the wrong heads, and the company exchanged them immediately without a fuss, but Eric had to do the removal and re-installation.

Regards,

Paul

[suesailor]

Gorgeous!!!
Is that the original wind screen? Ours is so corroded and possibly has a couple deck leaks. What's the trick to taking it off without breaking it?

Cheers,
Susie & Lon