Crack below Bow eye

[Colliw11]

Went to pull the boat at the end of the season and found this crack below the trailer eye. It appears to just be the gelcoat, but what would cause a crack in the area other than trailering? is it a stress point for the boat flexing in rough seas? Boat is a 96 Chase.

 

[seasick]

It doesn't look like just gelcoat to me. More pictures would help but it looks like the edges are not aligned ( at different levels. If so, it may be a serious structural crack probably caused by impact with a dock or the trailer winch stand or something else hard.
It could also be a tension crack caused by excessive force on the bow eye.

 

[DennisG01]

I agree, that looks too wide to be a gelcoat stress crack. Pull the bow eye out and inspect further - both inside the crack and the inside of the boat. You may need to grind away the glass on the inside.

This is an extremely rare place to get a crack - this is one of the strongest parts of the boat. Heck, you could hang the boat by the bow eye and it wouldn't damage the bow keel area.

I'd only be guessing to try and figure out what caused it. But in the end, the cause is a moot point - it just needs to be fixed.

 

[seasick]

I agree, that looks too wide to be a gelcoat stress crack. Pull the bow eye out and inspect further - both inside the crack and the inside of the boat. You may need to grind away the glass on the inside.

This is an extremely rare place to get a crack - this is one of the strongest parts of the boat. Heck, you could hang the boat by the bow eye and it wouldn't damage the bow keel area.

I'd only be guessing to try and figure out what caused it. But in the end, the cause is a moot point - it just needs to be fixed.

I wonder if the bow eye was used as a lifting eye and it wasn't optioned as a lifting eye. Regardless, it needs to be checked out.

 

[DennisG01]

I wonder if the bow eye was used as a lifting eye and it wasn't optioned as a lifting eye. Regardless, it needs to be checked out.

Truthfully, that shouldn't do it. The Lifting Eye option, from what I know (don't know) about Grady is that the bow eye is then tied in to a center cleat on the deck - and THAT is then used as the lifting point (making it a bit easier). But it's quite normal to lift a boat with the bow eye - in fact, VERY normal.

That said, If someone was lifting erratically from the bow eye, that's a possibility. Well, actually, it would more likely come from lowering the boat and very quickly stopping it. It's still a bit of a long shot.

But, hey, that's still just guessing

 

[Fishtales]

From the pic, I'd say you have some investigation to do. Gotta get inside the hull if possible and inspect.

 

[Feedingfish]

I saw that same of failure in a friends boat. The cause was that the bow eye was installed without an inside baking plate and the bare nut was cutting through the glass. Definitely need to check inside attachment.

 

[Colliw11]

Thanks for the reply's it doesn't appear to have done anything internally, but im going to remove the actual eye this weekend and grind out the crack to see if its something i need to do a full glass repair on or just epoxy it and maybe replace the eye with a large one with a plate that covers that area. I'm just hoping it not a sign of flexing somewhere else in the boat.

 

[DennisG01]

Thanks for the reply's it doesn't appear to have done anything internally, but im going to remove the actual eye this weekend and grind out the crack to see if its something i need to do a full glass repair on or just epoxy it and maybe replace the eye with a large one with a plate that covers that area. I'm just hoping it not a sign of flexing somewhere else in the boat.

I highly doubt that. There's really no correlation that I can think of. See what the backer plate (or lack there of) is like, as well.

Remember to grind PAST the crack to properly fix it.