Those are great dramatic photos for sure,
Wonder what caused it?
Think the boat fell? Can't imagine hitting a piling while sailing that would produce such a hickey.
Hurricane damage?
Who knows. But I was talking with another guy about your little problem, with a guy who is present at the yard every day, not like me only weekends.
He mentioned a legendary local very high end fiberglass guy had been working on a Bar Tender at the far end of the yard, that I saw come in with extreme rock damage to the underwater areas. Extreme, this hull is 3/4s to 1" thick, so I imagime there was a lot of white delaminate (roving and matt) showing once it was cleaned up. Bummed I wasn't around. Becaause....
Evidently he used a vacuum bag technique, that I know nothing about, and vinylester. Vacuum to drive the resin deep as possible in to the delaminations - and vinylester because it sets up right away and you can shape and go on to the next step. Took him two days!!!
Of course there ALWAYS is another way to get a job done - but IF you have hull shape and a lot breaking (but with good hull 'integrity') as what it looks like in your photos, vacuum bagging may be the only way to resaturate fibers deep into the structure. Don't know that anybody has talked about such a technique here, and you don't need a college degree to figure it out since so many peaple do it ---- maybe that's the way to go? My guess is the decison is based on how much fiber you have to fill, and how to get in to fill it. The applique' way described above would require that all loose stuff be dug out and ground away. Deep gouges could have chopped strand mix pressed in to them, followed by cabosilgel and mat layers. Vacuum bagging is way more sophisticated, if appropriate. Wonder how he spanned the holes?
If the breaks are essentially broken but connected shards with relatively little fiber showing AND a not so thick a laminate (3/8s / 1/2"), a variation on my last post might be easier.
I, for one, am very curious just how much damage your gelcoat removal will reveal. And what you decide to do.
Your solution, method and progress photos of such extensive damage repair will be most instructive and no doubt very well visited in the archives by many in the present millennium!
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