For you experts:: if a boat has a few,, blisters in the gel below
water line, forward toward the bow ??

Is this a "run away fast" boat?

Or,, are the blisters a fix it item.

wrote in message
...
On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:51:41 GMT, "Janet O'Leary"
wrote:

For you experts:: if a boat has a few,, blisters in the gel below
water line, forward toward the bow ??

Is this a "run away fast" boat?

Or,, are the blisters a fix it item.


I can't see them from here, but it doesn't sound very serious. If the
problem was very widespread, you might be looking at substantial work,
but boats don't seem to sink from blisteres, even if fairly severe.
They should be fixed, however. now would be a good time to grind them
open so they can dry all winter.




Once ground out and dried, and the rest of the bottom stripped and prepped,
fill the former blisters with thickened epoxy, then epoxy barrier-coat the
entire bottom. New bottom paint and Bob's your uncle.

Janet,
You will not really know if the blisters are behind the gel coat or within
the lamination until you open them up. Please examine them very closely to
deterime the ingress point of the water. Until these questions can be
answered, you really do not know the extent of the damage. For instance a
gelcoat blister is not an issue, but if the blister is actually in the
lamination, the damage can be very costly, even terminal.
Steve

"Janet O'Leary" wrote in message
...
For you experts:: if a boat has a few,, blisters in the gel below
water line, forward toward the bow ??

Is this a "run away fast" boat?

Or,, are the blisters a fix it item.

wrote in message
...
On 11 Dec 2008 11:20:01 -0600, Dave wrote:

On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:47:11 +0100, "Steve Lusardi"

said:

but if the blister is actually in the
lamination, the damage can be very costly, even terminal.

What is the basis for that conclusion? Personal observation? Sea stories?

Too much coffee?

I've seen some very bad cases of "boat pox," but even in the worst of them,
they weren't "terminal." Perhaps not impossible, but it's hard for me to
imagine a case of blisters that far gone.

"Janet O'Leary" wrote:
For you experts:: *if a boat has a few,, blisters in the gel below
water line, forward toward the bow ??

Is this a "run away fast" boat?

Or,, are the blisters a fix it item.

Depends on how bad the blisters are, once they are opened up & closely
inspected.... and how much of a price discount the owner/seller is
giving.

Blisters vary tremendously in severity & cost. It's said that "no boat
ever sank from blisters" but I've seen golfball-sized blisters that
left very little believable structural integrity. I've also seen
blisters fixed by "professionals" in an incredibly shoddy manner, then
hidden under anti-fouling paint. It's not difficult but it's tedious
labor. The shops that really do it right offer a guarantee but they
also charge a lot.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King

On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:51:41 GMT, "Janet O'Leary"
wrote:

For you experts:: if a boat has a few,, blisters in the gel below
water line, forward toward the bow ??

Is this a "run away fast" boat?

Or,, are the blisters a fix it item.


It depends.

Here's a good starting point:

http://www.yachtsurvey.com/BuyingBlisterBoat.htm

More he

http://www.yachtsurvey.com/blisters.htm

On Dec 11, 2:00 pm, Wayne.B wrote:
On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:51:41 GMT, "Janet O'Leary"

wrote:
For you experts:: if a boat has a few,, blisters in the gel below
water line, forward toward the bow ??

Is this a "run away fast" boat?

Or,, are the blisters a fix it item.

It depends.

Here's a good starting point:

http://www.yachtsurvey.com/BuyingBlisterBoat.htm

More he

http://www.yachtsurvey.com/blisters.htm

Ignore them and do not try to "fix" them. ALL fixes regardless of how
they are done are far worse than the blisters themselves and fixes
rarely work. Blisters simply are not a problem at all. There has
never been a case of gel coat blisters causing structural problems and
I defy anybody to show such a case. I Once re-did the entire bottom
of a boat that was blistered by grinding and them filling with epoxy
and epoxying the entire hull and then realized that it was a waste of
time and money. The blisters were not any problem at all although
they were all over the hull. Gel coat blisters are simply not a real
problem.

Dave wrote in
:

On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:47:11 +0100, "Steve Lusardi"
said:

but if the blister is actually in the
lamination, the damage can be very costly, even terminal.

What is the basis for that conclusion? Personal observation? Sea
stories?


I've been around some kind of boats all my life. Before I started
having something to do with expensive motor and sailing yachts, I never
saw a blister on any old boat. That's a personal observation from over
50 years.

The part about "lamination" is also interesting, given manufacturing of
boats anyone can afford are done with a chopper gun in a mold, now, not
hand laid fiberglass for a decade or two. I don't ever remember seeing
a blister on the cheapest boats like Bayliner, but I suppose stuff
happens.

Should run faster full of blisters to roughen the surface and break
surface tension.

On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:29:45 -0800 (PST), Frogwatch
wrote:

The blisters were not any problem at all although
they were all over the hull. Gel coat blisters are simply not a real
problem.

They are a very real problem if you care about boat speed in light
air, or if you ever want to sell the boat.

On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:41:47 +0000, Larry wrote:

I don't ever remember seeing
a blister on the cheapest boats like Bayliner, but I suppose stuff
happens.

They typically fail from stringer or transom rot, sometimes decks,
floors or bulkheads.