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As you do one thing you always find a couple more… Well in prepping my boat for repainting the stripes we’ve noticed gel coat blisters around the watrer line. These are small eraser sized blisters mostly between the bottom paint and the stripe but some up into the stripe as well. The suggested fix is to grind that back and build up with vinylester and mat whereif needed but they seem to be very surface. Then we would paint over the vinylester adding bottom paint up to the bottom the stripe and then paint the stripe. They don’t seem horrible to me, but I’m doing this other work so I’m kind of thinking just do it so its oneless thing to do in the future. Here are some pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/deepplaya/tags/gelcoatblisters/
Another issue is cracking in the gel coat on both sides of the hull roughly where the buylkhead at the starboard companion way comes doen and directly opposite. I already am planning to sand out and vinylester the cracks in the strips at the top stripe, but what about along the hull any body have this (I guess everyone) and any opinions on how serious it is. Reccomendation from the yard is that if we were painting the entire hull we would want to sand it out and seal it then paint, but we’re not so don’t sweat it. I’m kind of thinking the same thing.
I’m just curious what you all think (especially our resident surveyor) and if you have had any similiar experiences.
Thanks,
-p
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s/v Deep Playa | Pearson 424 Hull #152 | http://www.DeepPlaya.comPost generated from Pearson424 Forum using Mail2Forum
Owners no more...
Thanks Dawn and Patrick! -
I have lots of blisters.
The advice I got was “well, it’s taken 28 years to get to the size of a dime, we can fix them, but you will get more, if it were me I wouldn;t worry about it unless they got a lot worse.
The surveyor and 2 different yards to me this, since the yards were telling me not to pay them I took that as pretty sound advice.
On 11/20/09 9:04 PM, “Patrick Walters” <> wrote:
As you do one thing you always find a couple more… Well in prepping my boat for repainting the stripes we’ve noticed gel coat blisters around the watrer line. These are small eraser sized blisters mostly between the bottom paint and the stripe but some up into the stripe as well. The suggested fix is to grind that back and build up with vinylester and mat whereif needed but they seem to be very surface. Then we would paint over the vinylester adding bottom paint up to the bottom the stripe and then paint the stripe. They don’t seem horrible to me, but I’m doing this other work so I’m kind of thinking just do it so its oneless thing to do in the future. Here are some pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/deepplaya/tags/gelcoatblisters/
Another issue is cracking in the gel coat on both sides of the hull roughly where the buylkhead at the starboard companion way comes doen and directly opposite. I already am planning to sand out and vinylester the cracks in the strips at the top stripe, but what about along the hull any body have this (I guess everyone) and any opinions on how serious it is. Reccomendation from the yard is that if we were painting the entire hull we would want to sand it out and seal it then paint, but we’re not so don’t sweat it. I’m kind of thinking the same thing.
I’m just curious what you all think (especially our resident surveyor) and if you have had any similiar experiences.
Thanks,
-p
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s/v Deep Playa | Pearson 424 Hull #152 | http://www.DeepPlaya.com <http://www.deepplaya.com/>Post generated from Pearson424 Forum using Mail2Forum
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This year when I pulled Pelican out of the water to paint the bottom and restore the original waterline I found lots of tiny blisters along the waterline – I sanded them down and painted over them. They didn't penetrate the gel coat. I'm sure they'll come back and I'll do the same thing again.
As far as cracks on the hull goes – I haven't yet seen a 424 without them to one degree or another. I think it's due to gelcoat that's too thick. They are almost always centered on where you'd hang fenders. Some hulls are worse than others – Those are because the cracks weren't fixed properly before the hull was painted with Awlgrip or similar – the two coatings flex, expand and shrink at differing rates – this seems to make the crazing worse because as the cracks open water or moisture gets in and either through the same process as blistering or freeze-thaw cycles it can get horrible.
From what I can gather, if you have a restorable gelcoat finish, do that. You could go through the aggravation of cleaning all the cracks and filling with gelcoat. I'm horrible matching colors, but you might be better. Filling may make them look worse.
If you are going to paint the topsides anyway, use a can opener (beer can opener, that is) or a triangular scraper and trace all the cracks. It's okay if you go through to the fiberglass. Using epoxy or vinylester resin fill and fair the cracks. Sand smooth, paint hull and you're good to go until you're against a dock in a storm with your fenders out. Then expect more crazing. Ah, well…
Bob
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Bob Fine
s/v Pelican
Pearson 424 Hull #8
http://thesailinglife.blogspot.com
Follow me at: http://www.tinyurl.com/WhereIsBobFinePost generated from Pearson424 Forum using Mail2Forum
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Small cosmetic blistering on the water line like this is not uncommon for vessels of this type and seems to be a design and age problem. They are not structurally significant. I don’t believe you will be able to get the boat dry enough to do a good paint job this time of year in Seattle unless she is in a heated building.
I don’t much like to repaint the hull or top side as any chips, cracks, or abrasions stands out like a sore thumb. The Pearson has very thick gelcoat you should be able sand buff and wax the hull to look like new. Yes it will still have the crazing but in most cases it does not show up to bad.
I hate to say this but watch out how much work (money) you put into a 30 year old boat. Right now yards are looking for work and will try to sell you anything they can. You may only get back ten cents on the dollar. And at the end of the day you still have a 30 year old boat.
By properly repairing any blister (below the water line) over 1 inch in size, the vessel should have many more years of useful service. Routine maintenance like this should be scheduled about every two years. I just surveyed a 39 Westerly that had a full blister job in 2004 and it’s starting to show new blisters. This is very common (Note: Epoxy or Vinylester bottom jobs are not recommended on most vessels as they seem to have a tendency to fail after a few years if they are not properly done and can cost tens of thousands of dollars, so proceed with caution if you ever decide to go this route.)
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We had Lady Leanne closely surveyed when we bought her and there were no signs of blisters. There are, however, some small spider cracks in the gelcoat. These look like they are from some previous impact with the dock where the fenders hang. There have been some hellacious winds and chop in the past year that could have contributed to these as L.Leanne is on an end tie with a large western fetch across Ke’ehi Lagoon. You can only see them when you approach within about 3 feet. Like most older ladies, she looks good at a distance.
Dan Kalinowski
Lady Leanne II (#135)
Honolulu -
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