Fiberglass Issue around Swim Platform Mounts

[meteorman]

First, let me apologize for not having a picture or two to go along with this. The boat is an hour away and I failed to snap one when I was up there last weekend.

I've been having an issue of too much water in my bilge for some time now - pump will run every 20 - 30 min or so when I'm out on the lake and generally can be counted on to start up after a long pull. I really kind of assumed it was the shaft seal and I wanted a dripless anyway so I put one on there last weekend. During the test run and on some subsequent closer inspection I think the problem is much more serious. I noticed that the carpet was very wet in the rear starboard storage compartment. I've noticed this before but always assumed it was just leakage from my ballast bag. Well I haven't used the ballast system yet this season and it's still totally dry. The wetness is where the floor of the compartment meets the back transom wall and goes about two inches up the wall and two inches forward on the floor from the wall. After pulling the boat out I noticed what appears to be some delamination behind the platform bracket on that side. This has got to be where the water is coming in.

From some searching it seems like I'm not the first person to have a failure in this location but it's also not super common. My questions are - what should I know when getting something like this repaired. Clearly it's an area that's going to take a lot of force from that bracket. Also from anyone who's gone through something like it before, what sounds like a fair price to get it taken care of - I know each situation varies but I don't have any frame of reference for fiberglass work.

Thanks!

[lively]

well labor probably 12 - 15 hours @ 50-85 hr $ plus parts and 100% mark up ... about 500$ is what i would charge . depending on what i have to remove to access the damaged area ..

really is not hard at all and you can do it yourself for alot cheaper .. main thing is to dry the boat out completely and remove all the wet components / seats / carpet that surrounds it ..

the bolts that through bolt through the transom is probably the culprit and just grind the bad out and glass some new plates and reseal with 5200 and be done with it ..

my .02 cents

[Salty87]

amazes me this is still a problem, those of us with pre-Skier's Choice boats had it too. anyway, did you see this thread? https://forum.supraboats.com/showthread.php?17102-21V-Swim-Deck-Bracket-Repair&highlight=factory

it's an easy fix DIY or like most anything with a boat somewhat expensive to pay someone else to do. if you haven't worked with fiberglass it's a good skill to have when you own a fiberglass boat. this is a great project to learn on. the work is hidden and transoms aren't nearly as structural on an inboard as they are on an i/o or outboard.

remove platform
gain access to the transom from inside the boat (you don't really even have to cover this access up when you're done)
repair any transom damage from the inside including filling the old holes (the holes may have been messed by wobbly brackets or the holes might be in the way of the repair)
drill new holes through recently filled old holes if you had to fill them
install platform with backing plates and 5200

[meteorman]

Thanks for the feedback! It is kind of an unexpected failure for sure. I am very interested in trying the repair myself. The part that I am hung up on though is that there is some delamination of the gel coat so it does have some exterior cosmetics with it. It's under the platform and below the waterline so not a huge deal but it would probably drive me insane none the less if I screwed up the way it looks.

[CornRickey]

I'm not understanding the delamination part? Is it possibly gelcoat stress cracks? Before I went nuts with cutting into stuff, I would take a tube of 4200 and seal up the bracket and screw heads to verify that is your problem.

[meteorman]

Basically the gel coat cracked around the bottom of the platform mount and separated from the layers of fiberglass underneath. I haven't tried to wiggle it but I am pretty sure it would move if I pulled on it.

[Salty87]

there's usually more than one way to go about a fix but it all depends on the situation. got pics?

[jasun]

Bad comes to worse, you can do this:15754

I ran into some fiber glass problems too:

https://forum.supraboats.com/showthread.php?16204-Wet-sanding-surprise

[CornRickey]

If it's just your gelcoat without impact damage underneath then this isn't your issue.

[meteorman]

So I finally got this taken care of and like many speculated, it wasn't a huge deal at all. I am lucky to have a really stand up skier's choice dealer in my area so I took it to him fearing a major repair. It turns out the bolts for the platform on the Launch 24's are not under the deck in the storage compartment. Fixing it was just a matter of removing the interior carpet on the transom, pulling the mount off and cleaning it up and then reassembling with some fresh 5200. He felt like the gel coat damage was just superficial and not worth the repair cost in an out of the way place on a 9 year old boat.

As a side note, we got to chatting and he mentioned that the factory is working on adapting the surf tabs that you see on the new Moomba's to fit on the older hulls. Could be pretty sweet to have factory fit on those.