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wrote:
I think that if you buy a boat, you directly ask the surveyor his
opinion on whether or not the blisters are a structural issue.

Definitely. And part of the out-of-water inspection must include opening
a few blisters, if present.

I have owned two boats with blisters. The first I repaired by drying
for 3 months and then grinding them out and filling with epoxy and then
several epoxy barrier coats (I know, not the same as a gelcoat peel)
and when it looked beautiful, it went back in the water and all my work
was hidden. A total waste of time as none of the blisters was into the
lam. The inside of the boat showed no problems at all.

If blister get all the way to the inside, you'd definitely have a problem!

A fellow was repairing a blistered boat near us, his had blisters the
size of softballs. I showed him how far into the cloth they were (when
you grind them out the cloth looks smooth), IMHO it was a serious
structural issue. My private opinion was that the boat was trashed, but
it's difficult to say that politely to a friend. He "repaired" it by
putting into each blister a little cut-out circle of auto body grade
cloth (maybe 8oz), two or at most three layers... to replace a couple
inches of matt & roving! Then putty to smooth it all over.

My current boat has some blisters and my strategy is to repair any that
look bad and ignore the others. I had a surveyor look over the boat
(not a real survey) for insurance purposes recently and he stated "No
obvious blisters" even though I had seen them .

If they're not up to golf ball size, then they're not all that obvious.
I've seen boats that had what looked like little teeny bubbles in the
gelcoat, smaller than your pinky tip... open them up and they start
looking like the Grand Canyon. Others where the bubbles really were
teeny little bubbles in the gelcoat, not what I'd call blisters at all.

... I think that if a boat
is over 20 yrs old and the blisters have not becom a structural prob,
they arent likely to ever be.

Depends... what about a boat moving to warm water. If it already has
small blisters in New England and you move to Florida, I guarantee those
blisters are going to become a major problem. Warm water seems to
magnify & accelerate blisters.

The only way to *cure* blisters is to put the boat in a body-bag and
pump in hot dry air to remove all moisture from the laminate. Just
letting it "dry" in open air in a climate averaging 50% humidity ain't
gonna do squat. OTOH plenty of people get lucky doing it that way...
shows that the blisters weren't that bad to start.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King