New boat owner with 14 ft Gamefisher fiberglass tri hull repair/rebuild questions

NC_Gator

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Dear Members,

I recently moved to NC and wanted to take advantage the resources here. I got a 1978 Gamefisher fiberglass boat a week ago from Craigslist with a 25hp Johnson outboard motor and a nice trailer for $700. This is my first boat. I am new to this forum and have found that this is a fantastic boat community. I have been researching and reading the posts on similar boats.

Back to the boat, I am the 2nd owner of the boat. The person who sold it to me is 70 years old and he was the original owner. He hasn't used the boat for a couple years. Although he said there were no leaks, I plan to do some patching and painting before I put it back into water. My goal is to do some simple work and to get it ready before July 4th. As I have never worked on fiberglass before, I have lots of questions and would greatly appreciate any help I can get from this community. I try to do my best to attach some pictures I took today.

1. there are some cracks on the bottom of the hull, right at the center. According to what the original owner told me, it might have been bumped to some rocks when the original owner took it to the sound for flounder jigging. from the pictures, you can see that the cracks are not huge, but I'd like to repair them. What will be a good patch or method to use for this kind of cracks? any recommendations?

2. The front deck has some cracks and it started to separate from the boat body. Is it possible to glue it back? If so, what glue to use? Do I need to take the whole front deck out to repair it? If so, how to take the deck out?

3. There are some small cracks on the side of the transom. They are not structural, but I'd like to repair them. What will be a good method to repair these small cracks?

4. I'd like to paint both the bottom and the inside of the boat. Any recommendations on the paint?

I consider my skill level as a home mechanic and like to do something like OP did on this post http://forums.iboats.com/forum/boat...hull-repair/543238-14-foot-gamefisher-rebuild. But I am not sure where to start with a good way to repair cracks on fiberglass, and don't know the best paint to be used to paint a fiberglass boat. I'd appreciate any recommendation/information/help you can give or direct me to.
 

Scott Danforth

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