New paint job this winter for my 56

any idea what type of repair was or was not done to the gelcoat cracking before applying awlgrip?

On my 56 all the cracks were grinded out then west system over them. Then Alexa seal was applied. The boat was painted at Jarrett Bay in NC.

Actually you just confirmed my worst case assessment, complete gel coat removal. Viking (and Post) did indeed perform complete gelcoat removal on a lot of hulls and yes it is horribly expensive. I know, I've done a couple myself.

Just a guess, the house and Flybridge would cost you on Curacao less then $20K (Awlgrip)

(They quoted mine for around 6k, when I remove all the stuff myself)

Well, lets call Dock Wise and get it on down to Curacao!! That would save enough $$ to make it plausible. Plus he can go check out
Spanish Waters and the yacht club! (spelling)

2004 65' Viking convertible that the gel coat was stripped from the rub rail up and re-faired and painted with Kingston Grey Awl Grip 2000 and Snow White . Entire strip and top coat job was less than $115,000 plus consultancy fees and completed in two months time in Stuart, Fl. in 2015. OP was informed of this two weeks ago.

Your spelling is OK, don't forget Barbara Beach on Sunday's...;-))

Awl Fair and Awl Fair LW are epoxy based compounds that don't change properties for expansion, compression, thermal and tensile strength from minus 5 degrees to 68 degrees F. If the gel coat crazing is deep & severe enough that it extends down to the glass substrate than it really doesn't matter if your using a grinder with 40 grit or a 6 inch D.A. with 80 grit/ one method is a bit quicker than the other .
The contractor that performed the work on the Viking took the gel coat down to bare glass where needed in large areas like the forward brow and then smaller areas from the rub rail up. They machine sanded all of the effected surfaces down to a few mils from going all the way to bare glass. The attached photos show the process. wherever you see the reddish color than that's bare glass. Any bare glass areas were coated with Hull Gard and then 545 sanded and then Awl Fair was applied and machine / long boarded smooth..

The finished product looks very nice.

Jonathan,
You and I have had this conversation via email and I believe that you know good and well what system was used. You know what the price was and who performed the work & where the work was done right down to what my consultancy fees were. Why are you keeping this thread alive by asking questions that have been answered previously in private?

I am the owner of the above mentioned Viking,If you have the gelcoat crazing I recomend you use the yard and painter that was recommended with Captholli as your coatings manager.If you want to ensure the success of your project,go with a team thats been there,done that......

Thank you BSD.