Ocean Alexander Gelcoat issues

I was looking at buying a 2003 456. Good looking boat except the gel coat is real bad shape. Looks like the boat is 40 years old, on the outside. Worst i have seen. Mechanics and interior are Good. I had a body man over to look at boat today and he said he could paint The whole thing, but would take weeks of prep and would cost in the neighborhood of $50K to paint. Of course this means it could easily cost more by the time the work is done.

Has anyone with an OA with bad gelcoat ever had such a large project done, and did it last? I am wondering about putting $40-50k into the boat and if it will last. Looking at using awlgrip.

Thanks,
Gordon

Gordon, I am working on my boat now and we are in that phase now. Click on the link in my sig. Where are you, some time a trip to another part of the country could save a lot of money.

Gordon J said:

I was looking at buying a 2003 456. Good looking boat except the gel coat is real bad shape. Looks like the boat is 40 years old, on the outside.

Click to expand...

Those are nice boats and I really like the 456+3, if you've ever seen one. Sounds like this one has probably never seen a lick of wax in it's 12-13 years.

If everything else is good, but you gotta wonder, then beat up the seller for a proper restore job. If you don't someone else will. Then either get it done or stash the money aside and work at it yourself. Lots of old boats, once gone like that need a constant going over which I would be doing on the hook. See what happens. Then think about new gel coat or Awlgrip.

Sit tight, O C Diver might give you some good direction.

Perhaps a bad over enthusiastic acid wash?
Even if you get a good allowance you still have the hassle of getting it painted. I`d rather have gelcoat than paint, and while there are variables, paint may not be as enduring as unmolested well cared for gelcoat.

i have actually seen numerous OAs from the 90s and early 2000s that have egregious Gelcoat issues. This has nothing to do with acid or washing.

Gordon

What are the gelcoat issues? Is there cracking? Is it worn thin? I am another fan of the 456 classic

Pics of gelcoat issues

Here are some pictures of the gelcoat. I have seen the same problem with other OAs. It seems the OSA people make good looking boats, but their gelcoat is an iffy proposition, especially those made around the turn of the century. I am attaching some pictures of the gelcoat job. Remember that this is a 2003.

OK, no pics. I tried several times to up load boat no success

Maybe this time it will work

Lets see if the pics come this time

From your pics, it looks like you have cracking in some stress areas? If that is the case, perhaps gelcoat is too brittle to withstand the flexing of the FRP itself? Have no experience with that kind of cracking, but I do with boat painting. Yep, a good Awlgrip job can be expensive. But I would check with a boat paintshop rather than an auto body guy (if I understood your original post correctly). They may also have some options for repairing the gelcoat. But, if you paint, my experience with Awlgrip is that you can get at least 10 years out of it with a bit of care. Some manufacturers routinely painted, Hatteras comes to mind.

THD,

No, I was not talking with an auto body man, it was a boat painter. The whole boat looks like the pictures I sent you. Gelcoating is out of the question. It will have to be painted. My current boat's Imron is 10 years old and still shines like new. I would hope that with a little care, Awlgrip would last as long?

Thanks for the replies.

Gordon

gelcoat issues

One more picture to give you all a better idea of the issues.

When you talked about paint and Awlgrip, I assumed incorrectly all you had was fading, chalking, sun damage. Not what you pictured.

Are you thinking an overhaul by pail will do the trick? Just paint over it?

Hawgwash,

I am not going to do it, I will let a professional do it. Lots of sanding, filling, fairing and then painting, as I understand the process. What I am wondering, is, how long the paint job will last if I care for it, or will this be the gift that keeps on giving?

Gordon

Gordon
That's looking worse than poor IMO.
Did you check the FRP? Any delamination or osmosis?



best regards / med venlig hilsen
Wadden

How long a paint job lasts is entirely dependent on how good a prep job the yard does. I'd do some serious shopping around for recommendations. In your area, I have seen some of the work done by Atlantic Yacht Basin in Great Bridge and it was top notch. The price sounds about right for a proper job; they'll have to take the hull down to bare glass to begin with.

Gordon, is that Fly 'N' Fish in Pompano Beach?

Waddenkruiser,

This is all above the water line, do don't think osmosis is a problem, nor delamination. I think it was just a bad job of gel coating and leaving the boat in the Bahama sun 365 that did it.

Caltexflanc, thanks for the tip. I already have an estimate from Atlantic Yacht Basin. I don't own the boat yet, trying to decide whether the price is low enough to make me go ahead.

Gordon

Hawgwash,

Yes it is. Are you familiar with the boat or did you just see her on yacht world?

Gordon

Hawgwash,

Yes it is. Do you know the boat?

Gordon

Gordon J said:

Hawgwash,
Yes it is. Do you know the boat?

Click to expand...

No, but I'm wondering if this might have contributed to some of what you see.

Greetings,
Mr GJ. Well, for a 42' boat $50K sounds reasonable. I got a quote 2 years ago for ours (slightly larger) from AYB (as mentioned in post #17) and it came in around $130K. Your call. Did ours with Alexseal.

I can definitely tell you who NOT to use for a paint job (locals out of Elizabeth City, NC).

Cracks like you show in the pictures are called radius cracks and not that uncommon in many different so called quality brands.. Especially for Chinese built vessels that do not have good QA/QC.

I have seen and dealt with them many times over the years. To do the job right they have to be ground out and a layer or two of mat properly installed (that is likely missing) with paint and or gel coat to follow. Simply painting over them will only and briefly mask the underlying issues, poor build quality around the door or structure.

No, I don't think so, The c trunk cabin's gelcoat is probably the best on the boat, other than the hull. The owner re-enforced the trunk cabin roof to take the skids and get the blades over the roof of the fly bridge. But, if you look at the picture you do see 3 barrels that probably contain JP8. that is about 1300 pounds of fuel. The chopper weighs about 1500 pounds. The crazing is everywhere, not just at the back of the boat to include the area above the front windows.

Gordon

Wow, looks like a lot of work to get it right. Maybe not cost effectively possible, still more than a paint job IMHO. Hard to blame OA.

Should have been an Al boat so it could be used as a landing pad and freight ferry!

Sunchaser,

After thoroughly examining the trunk cabin, I would be surprised to learn that carrying the helicopter had any impact. Again, this gel coat problem is everywhere to include the bow. I have looked at numerous OAs that have gel coat issues. I looked at a 423 in Connecticut last summer that had only 600 hours on the engines and a new looking interior, but all the horizontal surfaces were crazed with thousands upon thousands of cracks of all types. Vertical surfaces looked great.

I am going to take some advice, however, and do some grinding out of the radiuses and reglass to avoid future cracks.

Gordon

Am I missing something?
Late last night you said "I was looking at buying a 2003 456."
Today you say "I am going to take some advice, however, and do some grinding out of the radiuses and reglass to avoid future cracks."

Have you already bought it?

In my experience that sort of cracking is due to the gelcoat being too thick. Gel coat is simply heavily pigmented, slightly thickened resin. As such it has no glass fiber reinforcement. Putting it on too thick results in cracks like you have shown. Prepping it for paint will start with an aggressive sanding of all surfaces. When that is done the surface will be coated with a filler putty (awl-fair is the awl-grip product). That will then be sanded out and the surface will get one or more coats of primer. After final sanding the topcoat will be sprayed on. As mentioned above a quality awl-grip paint job (or any other two part urethane product) will look great for around 10 years and will in most cases still look pretty good for years past that. The color of the paint will be a factor. Dark finishes and reds don't last as long as light colors.

TDunn; nice commentary.

Hawgwash,

An agreement is being contemplated. My words may be getting ahead of reality. The hard part in any boat buying decision, is trying to figure out the right price, and that is what all my questions are about. At the end of the day, with a boat like this, one has to make sure that they are being compensated for the risk they are taking. What happens if the boat painting cost 60k, instead of $40k. Etc, etc, etc. I have to make sure there is enough slack in the price to protect myself from this kind of surprise.

Gordon

I would use a pencil grinder on some of the cracks,to see if they are surface cracks. I used awlfair on the gelcoat cracks on my boat and they never reappeared that was 5 years ago.awlfair is great product