[abudoggie]

Bought an old Pearson 28. Surveyed. In good shape except for stress cracking in deck under stanchion bases. I'm going to do proper repairs in off season.

Only a couple are bad enough to where I will probably have to dig out some old wood too. Others are just minor cracking. All will get proper new bases and rebedding, etc.

In meantime, does it make any sense to caulk over the cracks to reduce water intrusion until properly fixed or does that muddy things up further? If so, any suggestions on what to use? I'm assuming silicone would be bad (cause adhesion problems with proper repair?).

Thanks for any thoughts....

 

[Stu Jackson]

Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure.

Really.

 

[jameswilson29]

Most boats that age have spider cracks around the stanchions. These do not necessarily allow water in. Large cracks that would allow water ingress indicate a more serious problem. It is always a good idea to ensure your stanchions are well-secured, don't leak, and have adequate backing plates. I have a few spider cracks, but no large cracking on my P28 that I would consider filling, at least not before several hundred other maintenance/repair items on the list.

BTW, there are some spider cracks on the transom of my P28 where it meets the hull, presumably from a dock collision. I was all prepared to repair the cracks from the inside of the hull. After I crawled under the cockpit seats and cleaned the fiberglass surface of the inside of the transom with acetone in preparation for sanding, I discovered the cracks were entirely superficial - there was absolutely no cracking in the fiberglass inside the hull, only in the gel coat outside. Fiberglass is more flexible than gel coat. Pearson did excellent fiberglass work, so you may be overly concerned about the stanchion spider cracks.

 

[MarkSF]

Cracks in the gelcoat are the result of over-flexing, it can be either once from an impact, or many times from something that is regularly loaded and unloaded (like stanchions). Fine ones are quite common.

The fix is to stiffen the area. The easiest way would be larger backing plates, maybe epoxied to the underside.

Jamestown distributors sell FR4 pre-cut into backing plates. I just used some for my jackline project, epoxied to the deck. A very strong and stiff structure results.