Swim platform repair estimate

SeaNile

SeaNile

Well-Known Member
Aug 16, 2010
1,522
Chadds Ford, PA
Boat Info
2003 50 Sundancer
Engines
Cummins QSM11
Any idea for an estimate to repair a wet swim platform on a 96 450 DA?

One quote I received last night was $3900. That seemed a bit excessive to me.
 
I think a lot depends on what they are going to do and how. You can also compare it to the cost of new one. $3900 doesn't seem that outrageous, but I don't know the extent of the damage.
 
Is it wet on the actual platform or just the lower supports?
What is the actual percentage compared to the rest of the boat?
 
recent thread, a guy had a new platform built for dirt cheap, see if you can find it, maybe you live near him. I think it was like $1500 for a molded in platform.
 
IIRC Frank W had his done......they removed the platform and did it upside down making it an easier and cleaner repair....i would imagine that gets expensive
 
True, I went thru a swim platform repair on my 390EC in 1995 after a slip neighbor failed to secure his boat properly for hurricane Opal, a Cat 4 storm. My 450DA platform is pristine and has never been damaged.

The platforms are constructed about the same way so, depending upon where and how bad the damage is, how you repair them is about the same. I can tell tell you that the cost for a repair on a 450DA platform will be expensive because the boat will have to be hauled out and blocked up in a boat yard for the duration of the repair. The swim platform is thru-bolted to the transom and most of the bolts are below the waterline or so close to it you cannot put the boat back in the water until the swim platform bolts are above the waterline. The weather won't be your friend on this one at this time of the year because the vertical supports, if one or more of them is involved in the damaged area also attach the platform to the transom. They are fiberglass so temperatures will have to be above about 65 and the weather dry.

Most likely, the previous owner has backed into a dock and crushed the back edge of the platform. The 450DA has great sight lines, but if the Captain has not developed a method for telling where the back of the swim platform is, he's liable to crush it at some point.

The other challenge on the swim platform is the non-skid pattern in the gelcoat. If the repair requires grinding away the nonskid pattern, getting a suitable match is time consuming and time means money.

As Ididntdoit indicated, we did remove the 390EC platform and ground away the bottom gelcoat and plywood core and rebuilt the platform from the inside out/bottom up using a foam core rather then plywood. It made a much better and lighter platform and was not that much more expensive, but this was an insurance job so cost wasn't a factor, although I would have used foam coring anyway.

Full core and re-gelcoating the bottom, haul out and yard time was about $3500 in 1995, and there was gelcoat match to deal with. The platform on a '96 450DA is a big one.....13'+ long and 4 ' wide so t he materials will be a lot more than the 13' x 2' platform on the 390EC.

Once again, we haven't seen the boat and only know what has been posted, but from just what was posted, I think the $3900 estimate is going to be light.







 
The process is pretty straight forward, but there are a lot of small (or "other") steps that have to be taken, as well. Frank pretty much listed them so I won't bother repeating. But what does deserve to be repeated is that while the material cost isn't too bad, there's just a lot of labor time involved in this. $4K doesn't sound unreasonable, at all.

Frank mentioned non-skid repair - and, hopefully, if you're just dealing with a wet core and you can skin the cat from underneath you won't get into non-skid repair. But if you do, like he said, that gets even more expensive, real fast, to make a quality repair. If non-skid repair does fall on the table, a couple other options are to paint the non-skid area after doing a quick repair. The paint, especially a non-skid type paint, will help to hide the repair. An easy option (and not all "that" expensive) is to put down something like Seadek.
 
Thanks for the info. Plan is to cover with Seadek eventually, and probably would make sense to do it at the time of repair. I'll also contact the swimplatform place for an estimate for a new one.
 
A new swim platform for that 450 will cost considerably less than new canvas. Just another perspective...:)
 
New swim platform is about 4500+700 in shipping+200 in prep fees.

Slightly more than I thought.
 
The 450DA swim platform is a one-off design...only used on 1 model boat. The standard size is 13' long x 4 ' wide. If you buy a new platform be sure the builder does not use the standard oval Sea Ray vents. The correct vents are narrow and long and do not shower the cockpit with water from a passing wake or sea. The oval vents on that large a platform will shower the cockpit with water/spray if a wake or the seas overtake you from behind.

Sea_Ray_450_DA_95-99_A3.jpg


The single row of vents along the transom is adequate for the OEM platform, perhaps because each vent has 4 holes under it vs. 2 under each on the swim platforms.com design. I would at least ask them why they deviated from what I think is one of the best swim platform designs Sea Ray ever used.
 
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