Fiberglass fatigue is generally something more prone to high speed

performance boats that are subject to a lot of pounding and can

start to break down the actual glass fibres, slow moving sailboats
usually not so much. That being said the construction layup and how
a boat is used will also play a factor.
In this particular case it should be determined if what we are seeing
is gel coat cracking or an actual breakdown of the cloth. Cracking of
the gel is a very usual occurrence and can be a result of several
issues.
Are the cracks in the glass laminate or just in the gel coat? Most
boats will develop crazing/cracks in the gel coat over time. It's
because the gel coat is a relatively inflexible medium over a
relatively flexible FRP laminate. Somethings got to give when the
boat flexes, and all do, and it's the gel coat which develops cracks.
Another problem is thickness of the gel coat. If the gel coat is too
thick, it will crack faster and easier. If a boat had the deck laid up on
a cold day, to keep the gel coat on the cabin sides they kept
spraying the cabin sides as it ran down the sides onto the cabin top,
deck was laid up upside down. The cabin top ended up with very
thick gel coat that was constantly cracking. Grinding out the cracks
and filling them but the cracks kept coming faster than filling them.
Just bit the bullet and ground the cabin top to bare laminate and
painted with LPU, and there will be no more cracks.
Another problem is design of the boat. Some boats had very sharp
turns where the cabin met the deck. Many of these boats show a
crack radiating out from where the forward and cabin sides meet.
The only solution is to grind down to bare glass and coat with a more
flexible surface medium. FRP likes easy turns to spread out the
stress area. It's not that the FRP is going to fail but that any
inflexible paint/gel coat won't be able to handle the flexing. In most
cases this isn't a structural problem but purely cosmetic. That's not
always the case, however. If the bulkheads are right up against the
boat hull, they will make a hard point causing the hull to flux at
these hard points. Some boats have experienced cracking of the
laminate in such highly stressed areas. Anything glassed to the
inside of the hull should have at least a small space away from the
hull to prevent this hard point and attachment/reinforcing laminates
extending out a good ways to spread the load.
In a certain boat, there is bound to be a lot of flexing. It's inherent in
the material. Would be willing to bet we've got gel coat problems,
not FRP laminate problems. The first resin reinforced boats weren't

FRP (fiberglass) but CRP (cotton). These first plastic boats were built
in the late 40's and some were still in surface
in commercial applications. Someone has done scientific longevity
testing. In any case, would bet a properly designed and built FRP
boat protected from UV radiation by a surface coat will outlast any of
us.
Any material, whether it be metal, wood, plastic, etc. will suffer from
some sort of fatigue if it is subjected to changing loads or flexing
over time. Its all down to the original design that determines
if/when it will fail.
In the early days, the material was not as well understood and so
everything made out of it tended to be over engineered. Classic
boats from the '60s and '70s tend to have very thick and strong hulls
and for that reason, the vast majority are still in active use today.
However, as better understanding of it came about, the hulls and
decks started to get thinner and thinner for weight saving and cost
reasons. This thinner GRP will allow it to flex more and so you'll see
much more modern boats with stress cracks, crazing, etc. So, it's all
down to three basic things. Design, maintenance and use. If one of
those has been poor in the past, there will be problems.

Composite laminates in service are submitted to loading, including

cyclic loading, which leads to the formation of internal damages,
such as matrix fissures, fibre rupture, delamination and micro
buckling. Several studies have addressed the relationships between
damage formation and propagation and their negative effect on the
mechanical performance of laminates, which reduces the useful life
of the material. Transversal cracks are formed in the laminate. Their
number increases with the number of cycles up to a saturation limit
corresponding to a certain number of cycles. Delamination then
takes place and extends leading to full loss of mechanical strength.
The composite then fails by fibre rupture.
Also development of a model for damage formation and propagation
in laminates with transversally oriented fibres with respect to the
load direction. In that study, the interface between transversal fibres
and matrix was considered as the region with highest susceptibility
to damage formation. In addition, the formation of such damages
would be different in compression and tension. Finally, alternate
loading would significantly decrease the life of the laminate as a
result of the combined effect of fibre and matrix debonding under
tensile and compressive loads, thus increasing the number of cracks
and, consequently, decreasing its strength.
The present study investigates the damage formation and
propagation during fatigue tests of two composite laminates with
symmetric and asymmetric distribution of E-glass fibre layers in an
orthostatic polyester matrix. Both short fibre mats and bi-direction)
woven fabric textile were evaluated. Uniaxial fatigue tests were
carried out for R = - 1, R = 0.1 and R = 10. Different maximum
applied stresses (R is defined as stress ratio, i.e., the ratio between
minimum and maximum stress) were also evaluated. Each specimen
was tested at constant stress amplitude and high-cycle fatigue,
above 103 cycles. Uniaxial tensile and compression tests were also
carried out in order to determine the ultimate strength of the
laminates.

1. A stable relationship exists between the diffuse scattering of

light fluxes and the accumulation of fatigue damages in the
fiberglass plastic, thus providing the basis for the diagnosis of
the degree of damage by the optical method.
2. In the case of the fiberglass plastic studied, the breakdown of
which is diffuse, the drop in light transmission can serve as a
measure for the accumulated fatigue damage.
3. The utilization of the optics of scattering media for the
development of layer separations and micro cracks has made
possible the assessment of the influence of various factors on
the light transmission as function of damage and the selection
of optimum conditions for the tests.
4. The criterion for the limiting condition to be reached by a
fiberglass plastic during cyclic stressing can be based not only
on changes in the light transmission but also on changes of
characteristics other than optical, but which can be
investigated by optical methods. It is therefore proposed to use
the value ofl=l 3 +1 4 which is proportional to the summary
surface area of breakdown and which enters into the equations
developed.