My Ty Weekender needs some care - need advice

[whistlerntwinks]

Hi,
I have a Ty Weekender built in 1984. She's in pretty good shape, but has a few issues. There is a little crazing on the bow deck. Do I need to be worried about this and is there anything I need to do to slow this from getting worse? There are also places on the cockpit seat where the fiberglass haas chipped. Is this a repair I can tackle as a novice or would it be better to let my marina make the repairs? Her boot stripe is looking a little shabby - do you know if the stripe is a painted stripe or is it a tape stripe?And...last question, a few of the hatch covers that are under the vberth cushions have delaminated so need to be repaired. Does anyone know where I can get a couple of hatch covers made?

Thank you in advance,

[sloopjohnl]

looks like there may have been air pockets in the gelcoat when the seat was laid up. i have had stress cracks in the same area. no delamination tho so i used a dremel with a grout removal bit to gauge out v-shaped channels where the cracks were. i used white Marine-Tex to fill the cracks and they matched the white pretty well on my '76 Ty. cracks have not returned.
i had long stress cracks on the foredeck emanating from the cleat. when i removed the top skin of fiberglass i found wet balsa underneath. i replaced the balsa with marine grade plywood (small area 6"x8") and west system epoxy followed with a foredeck paint job of Petit sandstone. at least 10 years ago and no returning cracks.
Drying time may be required if plywood or replacement if wet balsa.

[Markst95]

Nothing looks more than cosmetic damage. A marina will charge you $$- if you feel adventurous do the work yourself, it gives you a connected feeling to the boat and will make you a safer sailer. Youtube is your friend you can find info on how to do most anything. My favorites are Boatworkstoday, onboard lifestyle, sail life, and for motors Dangar Marine.

[Steve Laume]

I have dealt with those tiny crazing cracks a couple of times. Once was on a CD14 hull, over ten years ago. I sanded it fairly aggressively and gave it a coat of West Systems epoxy, then painted it. The crazing has never reappeared in that time.

Raven's cockpit had the same crazing as in your boat but maybe a bit worse. It was virtually all in the non skid area of the foot well with some slightly showing on the seats. This was not a boat wide problem but only in those areas. I was planning to re do the non skid coating, so I once again gave the affected areas a good sanding and a coat of epoxy. In neither of these cases did I go to the trouble of trying to gouge out the crazing cracks. You might do this for larger gel coat cracks but I don't think it is practical or necessary for these tiny crazing cracks. After the epoxy coat, I gave the area another sanding and applied Kiwi Grip over it.

It made more difference than I imagined. No more crazing and nice fresh non skid. This is a pretty easy thing to fix this way and Raven is looking proud once again, Steve.