I have a 92 Tuffy walleye rampage and the other day I noticed that it has a few hairline/stress cracks in the hull, it does’nt take on any water, Is it just in the jell coat or could they be a little deeper? Is this somthing I should worry about? Any info would be greatly appreciated.
you are right, usually this is just a gel coat issue and can be buffed out and repaired. i know it’s not a difficult job to do but you need to find someone who knows what they are doing to help you.
Jell coat has no retainer in that it’s just poly and over time the plasticizers can evaporate leaving it brittle (like the plastic on steering wheels)
With that said, with the pounding and stresses (like at the transom) a boat gets, over time the gell coat can crack. The glass behind it is secured with glass fibers; hopefully with a glass mat. Should be no problem unless there is flexing. You can probably determine if any flexing is apparent by striking it with a rubber mallet. If solid, probably no flexing. If not possibly some flexing.
Then if it is matted it will probably survive. If sprayed from a chopped glass gun it will probably fail. Only failures I have seen were deck to hull interfaces (down the length of the boat on the side) where only chopped glass was applied.
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