Cracks in Roof Exterior

[Ventura Girl]

Hello all,

I recently cleaned the roof off of my "new" '75 Ventura. I used a magic eraser and warm water, and with some elbow grease it was clean in a couple of hours. But as I was up there, I noticed quite a few small cracks in the top layer of the roof. I've attached some photos. From the interior there are no signs of any significant water damage. Can you tell me:
1) to what extent is this damage?
2) How can I fix/repair it?
3) Is this something a gel coat can fix? If so, How do I go about doing that?

Thanks very much in advance.

[John in Michigan]

In the second and fourth photos, it appears the roof has a coating of paint and that paint is cracking. It doesn't look like gelcoat cracks, which would appear very flat along the edges of the cracks. From the photos, its impossible to guess the condition of the underlying fiberglass and gelcoat.

Since its on the roof don't worry about cosmetic appearance. For now I would suggest at least sanding, patching and painting the cracks.

[John in Michigan]

Furthermore, you can check whether the actual gelcoat is cracking by chipping a small area along one of the cracks. If chipping chips out the gelcoat and exposes the fiberglass strands, that would mean there is cracking down to the structural fiberglass layer, and repairing would be more involved, i.e., patching and fairing the gelcoat layer.

[Ventura Girl]

Thank you for this info, John! Greatly appreciated.

[Ventura Betty]

What did you end up doing?

I'd love to connect to someone else who owns one of these awesome trailers... Mine is new me and I am in Califionia where there Canadian Trailers are nonexistent!