How bad is this?

[TQA]

I am looking at a 78 New Bombay Explorer, the 44 footer. I am assuming it has a balsa cored plastic deck. There are several areas where there is regular cracking of the non skid areas. In some cases the cracks extend into the sourrounding smooth deck. The deck does not feel soft nor does it crackle. A surveyor has looked at it and was not sure of the reason behind and the seriousness of the problem. The moisture content on a meter registers higher than a dry core but not
as high as a saturated core.

locker1.jpg (8.42 KiB) Viewed 2480 times

Anyone care to comment.

[Tim]

Those look like minor, limited, and typical stress cracks that form in many boats from a combination of over-thick gelcoat (if gelcoat is too thick it tends to crack, as it is brittle and contains no strength of its own; many boats suffer from cracking caused by overzealous application of gelcoat at the construction stage) and the usual movement of the deck and the entire boat during 30 years of use.

Lacking any particular signs of additional worry, such as crackling, softness, high moisture, suspect sounding results, or other visual problems, I don't see anything untoward in the photos you posted, given the age of the boat and the generally original appearance of the deck. In fact, what I see in these two photos is very minor in appearance, but then I'm not there and can't see/feel/assess the whole story. A surveyor really ought to be able to provide better insight than what it sounds like yours gave, though.

[georgefmys]

Damage shown does look very minor-but no one wants to inherit a problem when they buy a boat ,unless its factored into sale price. Is boat Far East-built? If so, many were cored with plywood,which can easily mask what's going on under the deck skin.For instance,moisture can movebetween outer skin and ply ,just dampening that interface..no problem. But,if a little on the wetter side,in a northern climate especially,and freezing can push skin up [unless its very thick],any resulting delamination seems to expand dramatically with ply probably due to poor bonding ability with polyester resins.
Should be possible to inspect core somewhere, or get a surveyor with more experience to do so. Buying an old boat that has an even minor deck problem can really come back to bite you later if you want to sell yourself at similar value,especially if it gets much worse on your watch.

[Homer]

I had similar cracking leading into the scuppers on my Hinckley. My surveyor assured me that it was over-thick gelcoat. Being a trusting sort, I drilled a couple of holes to check. That is all it was

[Hulukupu]

I've had older boats with a lot more cracking than what you show. In one case there was rotted balsa core, but it appeared to originate from old deck-mounted fittings- there was no rot evident under the non-skid where the fine cracks appeared along major traffic routes.
That said, it seems like it would be worth verifying what the core material is made of. My boat-builder friend says Island Packets used polycore that was more resistent to rot than either balsa or plywood.
David

[TQA]

Thanks for the input. The surveyor is an old guy, very experienced and highly qualified but appeared to want a GF expert to give a second opinion before he committed himself to an opinion.

The boat was built in Key Largo Florida but who knows how experienced or meticulous the layup guys were. I do not know for sure if the core is balsa or ply.