Carver Owners Forum

Just removed bottom paint and discovered that the entire perimeter of the Hull below the waterline has hairline cracks (crazing) from the paint stripe running north south to the Chine. Also found a few hairline cracks on the bottom hull - but not as extensive as the area above the chine.

Spoke to Carver and they admitted that they had a product defect back then and stopped using material from that supplier. Never determined why some boats had cracks and others did not. Either way - they say it's on me to fix it.

Any thoughts? Carver recommends a strip down of the gel coat layer and the barrier coat down to the glass layer. Then add an epoxy filler layer, barrier coat, and bottom paint. Estimate is $10k.

Not sure if I do this or pocket the $10k and see what happens. Boat is 12 years old and has no water intrusion.

I posted pictures in case someone else has had this problem.

Any help appreciated.

I would do the repair. You are talking about a small percentage of your boats value. I don't think that not doing the repair is going to cause you any grief in the short(er) term once you apply several coats of bottom paint. But I am anal with my boat, so I would fix it.

Looks like a gel coat issue to me. I've heard this can happen if the coat is put on too thick at factory, and can happen if the gel isn't mixed right and gets too hot during the curing process. If it's just the gel, it's not a structural issue. To be sure however, you should carefully grind away a section of a few cracks to see if they are isolated to the gel only and not into the glass. I suspect not but this needs to be determined. While gel is not as water proof as epoxy, it does act as a water barrier. Bottom paint does not and the glass under the gel isn't impermeable either. Given that it is all cracked, I wouldn't feel comfortable with a compromized barrier.

Epoxying the bottom properly is pretty time consuming and hard work. Add to that the cost of material; epoxy is pricey, and it quickly adds up to thousands. At $10K, I would expect the full pull; blasting all the gel off if the cracks go down to the glass, an epoxy wet-out coat with powder additive to increase adhesion, putty the entire hull with West System product only (some will cheap out here), sand sand sand , a nice thick barrier coat (Interprotect), I like 5 coats rolled on (alternate colours to ensure full coverage) but you can get a thicker coat per sprayed application, and finally anti-fouling paint and I would only use ablative paint, about 4 coats. If the blasting isn't too aggresive, you may be able to get away with no puttying but for that money, one would expect to include puttying unless there are conditions we are not aware of. Other than maintaining the paint, you shouldn't have to worry about this bottom again providing they know what they're doing and they use the proper products.

Thanks for the comments. I had a fiberglass shop take a look last week. They determined the cracks were only to the gel coat and stopped at the barrier coat/ glass layer. (Carver put a black barrier coat on the glass then the gel coat). They recommended no grinding or removal of the cracked gel coat - but rather seal it with 4 coats of epoxy barrier paint then two coats (dual color) ablative bottom paint.

Their rationale was that in 14 years (boat is 2002) the hull was not compromised - no reason to think it would not continue to hold up. I don't want to cheap out on this - and I know the 4 coats of epoxy paint is not cheap either - but I do not want to over do the fix either.

Any thoughts on this fix appreciated - -