Mobile Bay Fiberglass Fairhope keeps sailboats the way other towns keep trucks. The fleet at Fly Creek Marina and on moorings and piers from the Municipal Pier down toward Point Clear includes a lot of hulls from the 70s, 80s and 90s, boats with decades in warm brackish water. That age and that water produce a specific list of fiberglass problems, and we work through that list on the Eastern Shore every year. Hull blisters below the waterline are the classic one. Warm Mobile Bay water is about as blister-friendly as it gets, and an older hull that hasn't had a barrier coat will eventually show them.
Above the waterline the story is decks and gelcoat. Cored sailboat decks take water at chainplates, stanchion bases and hardware that was bedded thirty years ago, and once the balsa is wet it spreads quietly under the skin. If the deck oil-cans underfoot near the mast or the side decks feel dead when you walk them, that's core, and it's repairable, we cut, dry, re-core and re-glass, matching the non-skid pattern so the repair doesn't shout at you. Gelcoat on these older hulls is usually thick, which is good news, because it means chalked topsides on a 1985 hull can very often be wet-sanded and compounded back to a real shine instead of needing paint.
Powerboats are here too, bay boats at private piers under the bluff and family boats in Fly Creek, and they get the same weather and the same water. We do all of this work mobile, at Fly Creek, at your pier or in your driveway, and for hauled-out blister and bottom jobs we coordinate with the yard so the fiberglass work lands inside your haul-out window instead of stretching it. Estimates are free and honest, call (251) 220-4157 and we'll come look.
Old fleet, warm water, honest answers
Fairhope owners tend to keep boats a long time and maintain them personally, so half our conversations here start with someone who has already ground out a blister or re-bedded a chainplate themselves and wants to know if they did it right. We're glad to check that work without attitude. The do-it-yourself repair that just needs proper fairing and gelcoat is a cheap finish, and the one that trapped moisture is much cheaper to catch now than after the season.
Fly Creek, the pier and the bluff
Fly Creek Marina · Fairhope Municipal Pier · The Fairhope bluff · Point Clear, and the water in between. ZIP code 36532. Gelcoat and smaller laminate repairs can often happen at the dock; transom, stringer, and structural hull work needs the boat on a trailer or hauled out. Every job is priced against the ranges on our cost guide.
Have us look before you haul out
Text photos of the damage to (251) 220-4157 with where the boat sits in Fairhope, and you’ll get a written range back, usually the same day.
Eastern Shore sailors ask us this
My 1984 sloop at Fly Creek has blisters on the bottom. Is that an emergency or a someday job?
Almost never an emergency, blisters develop over years and rarely threaten the hull short-term, but they don't improve either. Scattered small blisters can be repaired individually at your next haul-out. A bottom peppered with them calls for a peel and barrier coat, which is a bigger conversation. We'll assess it in the sling and give you both paths with prices.
The side decks feel soft near the stanchions. What does deck re-coring cost?
A contained re-core around a few fittings typically runs in hull section territory, $500 to $1,500 per area. Decks that are wet across large sections are structural jobs at $2,000 to $5,000 or more. Moisture readings tell us which one you have before anything gets cut.
Can chalky 30-year-old gelcoat really come back, or am I looking at a paint job?
Older gelcoat is usually thick enough to restore, yes. We wet-sand, compound and seal, and the results on 80s hulls routinely surprise owners. If the gelcoat is crazed through or previous restorations have thinned it too far, we'll say so, because polishing gelcoat that's too thin just gets you to a paint job the slow way.
Do you work at private piers along the bluff and down at Point Clear, or only at the marina?
Private piers are most of our Fairhope work. We bring everything to your dock, and pier work off the bluff just needs reasonable access and power, or we bring a generator. Point Clear is inside our normal coverage, no travel surcharge.
I'm buying an older boat on the Eastern Shore. Will you look at the fiberglass before I commit?
Happily. A pre-purchase fiberglass check, sounding the deck and transom, checking moisture, looking for old repairs done badly, takes an hour or two and has saved buyers here from some expensive surprises. It's not a full survey, and we'll tell you when you need one of those too.