1997 GTI Hull Damage

[Canti1pd]

Hello,

So I just bought a 1997 GTI and GS off of a buddy and I bought them without seeing them first because I got a really good deal on them. After picking them up and looking through them I found some damage on the hull of the GTI. These are the first skis I have owned so I'm not sure how serious this damage is. The gouge that is kind of miscolored send the most serious to me since it looks to have spider cracked out around it as well. I'm looking to get these out on the water as soon as possible but I want to make sure it's safe to do so first.

 

[mikidymac]

The only one I would be really concerned with is the 6" one with all the rust staining. The others are just cosmetic. If you want to do it correctly you are going to spend 100's of hours grinding out all the bad glass, repairing the glass and re gelcoating the entire ski.

For a quick and solid fix sand back the loose and chipped gelcoat and feather out the edges then apply Marine-Tex repair epoxy and sand smooth.

 

[GGuillot]

Typical cosmetic damage, I bet the keels in the very center on both of them is worn down exposing fiberglass. I'd get a better look at the one in pic 2, which looks like its got some mud or rust on it. The best approach I've found is die grind a channel on the crack and fill with Marine Tex then sand smooth. All the cosmetic stuff in the other pics can be sanded out if you decide to re gelcoat the ski, but it's harmless. Which I've done to my skis and it's a shit ton of work....but at that point you could fix all the imperfections, fill the rivet holes where the old mats were, put news one down and pretty up the ski with new gelcoat...