"Skip Gundlach" wrote:

Hi, grandma, and group,

Rosalie B. wrote:
Jere Lull wrote:

In article .com,
"Skip Gundlach" wrote:

The plot thickens (like epoxy in hot weather)...

Our boat is covered in poorly repaired blisters.

I don't know how, if you hauled the boat for survey and had any kind
of competent surveyor you got a boat that you didn't know was
blistered

Did I say that i didn't know about them? The boat was represented to
us as no-blisters, and on haulout, I was nearly ready to walk. As it
was, i sulked through most of the sea trial, I was so bummed.

OK - that wasn't clear and I didn't remember that, or maybe I missed
it.

What had me bummed was two things: It obviously wasn't "no blisters" -
and what was there was poorly repaired prior blisters, or poor
application of the barrier coat or both. The blisters we saw mostly
went "thock" rather than squish (well, I can't say that *any* went
"squish").

Now, on sanding or grinding them, they're nearly all dry - but
definitely blistered. Only a few have had a chemical smell to them,
which, because the boat has been on the hard for more than 2 years,
clearly shows that the problem was under the barrier coat in those.
Worse, most of the time, we see prior blue marks from where someone
used a sharpie over the red coat to mark the blister.

Some of these are substantially under the barrier coat - thus the
"thock" when you hit it. Others of them just make a dull sound where
there used to be, all around it, sharp report.

After all that, though, like most blisters, and as Pascoe points out,
it's not a structural issue. It's just "do it right" so we don't have
to do it again. It's a pain in the neck, but the exterior of this boat
will look as new, so we might as well get the bottom while we're donig
it.

When we bought our boat it was 20 years old. The PO had peeled the
bottom and put on 20 coats of epoxy IIRC. When we hauled it for the
survey, the surveyor said there were 'cosmetic' blisters - he pointed
them out to me, and I saw them.

We decided to do nothing.

We've never seen the blisters again.

Resisting the obvious question of haulouts or inspection, I presume you
must be very lucky. Having a blister disappear isn't nearly as common
as having more occur after barrier coating, AFIK.

We bought the boat in 1998. We had it in the water (brackish) through
the 98-99 winter because the marina had no capability for hauling our
size boat. In April 99 we cashed in a boat haul and wash that we won
at the boat show the previous October, and then put it back in the
water where it stayed for that summer.

The following winter (1999-2000), we hauled for the winter. After
that we went down the ICW in the winter two years, and came back in
the spring, hauled and painted the bottom and put the boat back in
again each year. The next time we hauled for the winter was 2002-2003
right after Bob's heart attack.

Bob figured the blisters (which were small - about the size of a
quarter) were incompletely adhered paint and in the outer paint skin
only and they probably wore off. I KNOW I saw them and they are
mentioned in the survey report. (Otherwise Bob might be inclined to
tell me I was delusional.) I know I've never seen them again.


The max we've seen are a couple around the waterline at the edge of
the epoxy coat.

We've always had the boat either red or blue (alternatively), because
we heard that whales don't like black hulled boats or another color
that I can't remember what it is.

Hm. I'd not heard that. The current coat is blue, and Lydia wants to
go back over, once the blisters are repaired, and those spots touched
up, with black. I'm not sure how many whale problems there are in the
Caribbean, so I don't know that it's worth worrying about, but, then
again, the Caribbean, as seen in some of the mailing lists of which I'm
part, may not be so safe for other more political reasons.

So, we're going to fix them all, put blue over all the repairs, and
then put a very heavy application of new ablative, with more on the
waterline and rudder, accompanied by PropSpeed on the running gear,
which is new between the tranny and the prop, dripless packing included
(Thanks, Roger!).

Due to all the repairs which have been done by that time, once all the
repairs have been overcoated after fairing, we'll give a toothcoat
sanding to all of it and then commence to bottom painting while Lydia
does the Poli-Glow. News at 11, so to speak, in my usual voluminous
galleries.

Current project(s) are rewiring the forward bilge pump, relocating and
replumbing the aft bilge pump, and hardpiping the aft head (along with
new supply hose and new cockpit scupper monster hose, all of which
lives under the aft head platform).

Lydia's started her occasional mailing of the news of the day from the
warm-fuzzy side in the google group Flying Pig Log, and I pop into the
yahoogroup The Flying Pig Log less frequently but with more detailed
and technical commentary, for those interested...

L8R

Skip and Lydia, sweltering in the St. Pete Hete

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at http://justpickone.org/skip/gallery/
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"Believe me, my young friend, there is *nothing*-absolutely
nothing-half
so much worth doing as simply messing, messing-about-in-boats; messing
about in boats-or *with* boats.
In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter,
that's the charm of it.
Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your
destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never
get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in
particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to
do,
and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not."