Fixing gelcoat on non-skid areas

[rclauss22]

Hello everyone new to the site have posted a few things with some excellent ideas...My 73 tsunami has circular chips on the non-skid grip tape like gelcoating. It seems i can take the hole chip out and there would be a circular whole there like its hollow under it, i have about ten of them on the boat and two rather large ones in the cockpit about 5 inches in diamter. My questions is how do you repair it so that it looks like the non skid is still there. how do i finish it so it has that rough grip tape finish??? Help please!!!

[gordonhg]

I have never tried this with gel coat but don't see why it would not work. I used to build windsurfer's and put non-skid on the decks by laying down a thin coat of finishing resin and then using a kitchen flower sieve sprinkle a layer of sugar over it (sugar decking). The sugar does not melt in the resin and its crystals sink into the resin. When it is hard, just wash off the sugar and it will be very non-skid. Sometimes it was too non-skid and I had to sand it down a bit. Try this as an experiment on a very smooth finished plywood to see what the result is like. It may be what you need. Don't know if the finish will match what you have. give it a try.