scape in under water fiberglass

[savell]

Hi all. I am embarrassed to ask as i should know already , but I am looking at a boat with some kind scratch in the gar board area of the keel hull joint. The boat in question has not been out of the water in a few years as far as I can determine. I have looked at the bottom with a small video camera on a pole and cannot see the scrape but the bottom it a forest. The keel shoe looks like Godzilas back. Here is the question. If the scrape is deep into the glass , how bad could it be? Thank you. Robin

[SaucySailoress]

Very bad. I think you'd need to have the boat lifted and inspected. If water has gotten into the core it can cause all sorts of rot. I know, we're busy having ours fixed as we speak.

[savell]

Video of keel shoe

[campuscab]

Having a cab company, what I do when buying a car I figure the worse and adjust my offer accordingly. For example I just bought a 2005 crown Vic. It had oil on the bumper. I assumed it had a bad rear axle. I got the car for $900. I explained that a rear end repair was 1200. I might get lucky and get away with a bearing and seal for about twenty five dollars. I doubt it because it looks like the car was driven a while like that. So if that is the case a can get a used one for 150 and put it in myself.
The same applies to boats. If you can do repairs yourself you can get braver buying stuff but if you have to pay full price then I would walk away. Mine had not been hauled out for years. I bought it frozen in the water. When I hauled it out the bottom looked horrible. Lots of scraping, sanding, fairing the keel, sealing and some VC17 it looks like a different boat.




At this point I probably have more labor into the boat than it is worth but it was good to learn. So I would research the boat and see how bad it could get and decide from there. The one thing that saved me was I have a cast iron keel. I walked away from two because the had damage and could not narrow down a top end price of the repairs. There was a Watkins 28 I liked but it was too big of a gamble. If you are unsure then pass there will be more everyday. I don't want to sound wishy washy but the point I am trying to make is I don't buy unless I know I am covered price wise and can handle the repairs. Good luck

Sent from my Huawei Y301A1 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[savell]

Thank you for the reply and the analogy. I think I can handle fiberglass repairs if they are not to big. For this one I feel like it would be grinding , filling and fairing. I have had some training in auto body repair and as far as fairing is concerned it is the same thing. Painting is not a problem either. She ticks all the boxes for me. Built for offshore cruising and proven capable , at least the design if not the exact boat. I have walked all the decks and there is no flex at all anywhere so even if there is some soggy core. I weigh 300 so I think it would flex if it was not very strong. LOL. One problem is the engine. It smokes blue even after a few minutes of running with load. It is a MD2B Volvo. I checked Volvo web site and most of the parts are out of production. A little worried about that. It comes with a spare engine though.