Crack in Hull

[John W]

I ran my boat yesterday and was cleaning her up when I looked in the engine compartment. On the portside, just under the engine I noticed about a 10 inch crack in the gelcoat. It seems to be above one of the lifting strakes. Not very happy, the boat is a 2004, with all of 39 hours. I did not see any cracks on the outside of the hull. I am thinking it must be some sort of void in the glass during the layup.
CG you have the same boat, any cracks in your engine room?
Open to thoughts, may have to take it the local dealer or send some pics to Donzi to see what they say.

I think there are other places there should be stress cracks, but not there.
JW

[Shanghied Again]

John: take pictures of the crack and send them to Donzi they are very good with taking care of problems also contact your local dealer they can help you out with this.

[RickSE]

John,

Would you consider the crack a hairline or wider open crack?

I have stress/hairline cracks in the engine compartment of my 2002. As far as I'm concerned it's not a big deal. My take on this is that the bilge coat paint in the engine compartment is not as flexible as the glass and gel coat. The bottom of the boat flexes under load and since the paint is fairly rigid and doesn't like to flex it cracks, especially if it's thick. Like your's I have no stress cracks on the outside of the boat only in the engine compartment paint.

My hairlines are under the engine between the stringers and up near the bottom of the firewall bulkhead, near the chine.

[hardcrab]

you may also get hairline cracks in low points due to resin puddles formed during lay up. thick resin without fiber reinforcement is brittle, not a structural problem in this case

[MOP]

I had one stbd. about 12" long found it end of last year, I sanded the surface coating away (two layers of paint and I believe on layer of gel coat) anyway the was absolutely nothing showing one I got that off. Just to satisfy myself even more I fine sanded and acetone one section still to find -0- to the substate.

Phil

[KRAVEN]

John,
I also had a half moon shaped crack on the port side below the engine that Donzi stated was caused from to thick of gelcoat.It was repaired and Donzi paid.Two years later I developed a crack on the bottom just above the botton port strake apox.8in.in length.I took it to Bill Stevenson's glass man and he opened it with a die grinder only to find the crack to be amost 2ft.in length.The crack was caused by an airpocket between the second and third layers of glass.Donzi did cover it after pictures were sent.
Good luck,
KRAVEN