ACP wrote:
http://www.winninghoff.com/pho9mbass.htm


Now *that* is a classy boat.

DSK

Eisboch wrote:
I think the biggest effect blisters have is on the boat's resale value.


Yep

And the market place is NEVER wrong!!

DSK

Pascoe is a boob...and has been run off every serious boating forum that he
used to post to.


"Chuck Gould" wrote in message
oups.com...

Harry Krause wrote:


BTW, no matter what anyone tells you or what you read, if you see
evidence of osmotic blistering on a boat you are thinking of buying,
move on. Those in the broker business will try to convince you it is
"only cosmetic," but it can have a far greater impact than that. I was
looking at a boat that had had some blistering repaired and noticed that
more pustules were breaking out elsewhere.


Please do tell how the typical gelcoat blisters found on most used
boats have a "far greater impact" than cosmetic.

David Pascoe, a surveyor who hates dealers and brokers as much as
anybody possibly could, has written that the idea the blisters damage
the structural integrity of a boat is a "misperception" and states that
after examining 4000 used boats with some degree of blistering he found
only about 10 where the blisters actually created an issue with
structural integrity. By my math, that's 0.25%- hardly the sort of
probability that should foster a rule of thumb "run away quickly if you
spot a blister". If a prospective buyer hires a decent surveyor and the
blisters are classified as "cosmetic", there would be no reason to pass
on a boat that was otherwise attractive. In fact, it's pretty common to
demand a further discount once blisters are discovered (most of the
time they are under the waterline and won't be seen until the survey
haulout), and then once the deal closes boat for many many years
without doing a darn thing about the unsightly but harmless pimples on
the bottom.

Pascoe's entire text on the subject:

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


Please elaborate on your rule of thumb.

Chuck Gould wrote:

You could peel all the gelcoat off a fiberglass boat and throw it away,
without sacrificing any structural integrity. Gelcoat is a porous,
cosmetic, alternative to paint.


Sure, but until you carefully pop & peel *every* blister on
the boat, you have no idea how big and/or bad they are.


When you find "baseball sized craters" on a boat, you're dealing with
an extreme situation that goes well beyond cosmetic gelcoat blisters. I
would agree that a boat with baseball sized craters should be avoided,
but that's not what one finds in most cases.

Agreed.

However, it takes a good bit of skilled labor to investigate
& determine the extent of the blistering. The baseball sized
craters looked like pinky nail sized pocks when the boat was
first hauled. Of course, over the next couple days they
swelled & began smelling like vinegar (a really bad sign);
but until the owner had invested about a weeks worth of
labor into opening them up, he had no clue the size of the
problem he was faced with.


... I diagree that gelcoat
blisters are a "kiss of death" that should take any boat with typical
cosmetic blistering out of consideration.


Again, depends on the boat. If it was sitting right next to
a sistership, asking only a slight percent higher price (or
a common enough production boat), I'd recommend not looking
back. If the boat was something special, worth the work
(because it's always more than just a matter of money) to
make sure of, then I'd recommend careful consideration of
the blistered boat.

It's worse to see abot with evidence of improperly repaired
blisters. **THAT** would be the kiss of death. And I (a
confirmed snob, true) would not trust any blister repair job
unless I personally witnessed every step of the job.

Blisters are just one more complication in an already
complex world. The worst thing about blisters is the
diversity of opinions about them, and the doubtfulness of
any previous repair.

Fair Skies
Doug King

Chuck Gould wrote:
Harry Krause wrote:

On 11/7/2006 9:51 AM, Chuck Gould wrote:

Harry Krause wrote:


BTW, no matter what anyone tells you or what you read, if you see
evidence of osmotic blistering on a boat you are thinking of buying,
move on. Those in the broker business will try to convince you it is
"only cosmetic," but it can have a far greater impact than that. I was
looking at a boat that had had some blistering repaired and noticed that
more pustules were breaking out elsewhere.


Please do tell how the typical gelcoat blisters found on most used
boats have a "far greater impact" than cosmetic.

David Pascoe, a surveyor who hates dealers and brokers as much as
anybody possibly could, has written that the idea the blisters damage
the structural integrity of a boat is a "misperception" and states that
after examining 4000 used boats with some degree of blistering he found
only about 10 where the blisters actually created an issue with
structural integrity. By my math, that's 0.25%- hardly the sort of
probability that should foster a rule of thumb "run away quickly if you
spot a blister". If a prospective buyer hires a decent surveyor and the
blisters are classified as "cosmetic", there would be no reason to pass
on a boat that was otherwise attractive. In fact, it's pretty common to
demand a further discount once blisters are discovered (most of the
time they are under the waterline and won't be seen until the survey
haulout), and then once the deal closes boat for many many years
without doing a darn thing about the unsightly but harmless pimples on
the bottom.

Pascoe's entire text on the subject:

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


Please elaborate on your rule of thumb.



Not worth the effort, but here is someone else's opinion. Note the
reference to delamination. SeaView site.




Glad you liked that Seaview article, it happens to be one of mine. I
did that interview with Phil for the magazine several years ago, and
they use it for their website.

When I had my boat in for its redo last spring, I had planned to have
the bottom completely stripped, a barrier coat applied, and new bottom
paint. Seaview stopped stripping off the old bottom paint when they
found some blisters. At no charge to me (at least for that) they did
some "test peels" where the skin out mat was removed and the laminate
below was examined. In each and every area tested there was *no*
evidence of delam below the mat, and that is the case in the
overwhelming majority of boats with gelcoat blisters. Seaview didn't
want to proceed with a barrier coat because of the possibilty that
blisters might continue to form and that could be confused with a
warranty issue in the future, but even Seaview agreed that there would
be no need to address the blisters unless I was concerned about
cosmetics.

Blistering can be evidence of delam, but there is no basis to conclude
that whenever one sees a blister there is likely delamination as well.
Nor is there any evidence that blistering will "lead to" delamination.

Thereby leading to my opinion and an opinion shared by a probable
majority of people who have looked into the blistering issue; in most
cases a blister is entirely cosmetic and a decent surveyor will be able
to tell a prospective buyer whether a specific case of blisters might
be that rare situation where the blisters are a visible indicator of a
deeper and structural problem.


"it happens to be one of mine" Love it Chuck:-)

Clearly peeling various depths including the glass laminates
themselves, to exploratory check "if" the blisters are cosmetic or other
is always the best way, but somewhat destructive & if now properly
repaired can cause more harm than the original blister(s); however FYI
here some surveyors still use & swear by, those sophisticated electronic
moisture detectors.

They definitely can detect moisture below the hull surface indeed
depending on the setting can read straight through most fibreglass hulls
(even the bilge, builtin tanks etc need to be totally dry). They can
track the perimeter of the moisture reading & give it an outline
(usually drawn on the hull in texta). If it's substantially bigger than
the blister itself then they go exploratory digging, but if it's
consistently over numerous blisters "just" the blister that contains
moisture then it's declared cosmetic.

Very few glass strands in a laminate, the strands being what the
moisture travels along, go vertically "through" the hull scantling but
they are always oriented along the hull in the layers.

Care & ingredient X (experience?) are always needed because sometimes
the size of the blister is oft little related to the moisture below.
i.e.a small surface blister can sometimes when checked with a meter have
moisture well out from it irregularly patterned literally like a cancer
growth.

K

On 7 Nov 2006 09:49:11 -0800, "Chuck Gould"
wrote:


Harry Krause wrote:
On 11/7/2006 9:51 AM, Chuck Gould wrote:
Harry Krause wrote:

BTW, no matter what anyone tells you or what you read, if you see
evidence of osmotic blistering on a boat you are thinking of buying,
move on. Those in the broker business will try to convince you it is
"only cosmetic," but it can have a far greater impact than that. I was
looking at a boat that had had some blistering repaired and noticed that
more pustules were breaking out elsewhere.


Please do tell how the typical gelcoat blisters found on most used
boats have a "far greater impact" than cosmetic.

David Pascoe, a surveyor who hates dealers and brokers as much as
anybody possibly could, has written that the idea the blisters damage
the structural integrity of a boat is a "misperception" and states that
after examining 4000 used boats with some degree of blistering he found
only about 10 where the blisters actually created an issue with
structural integrity. By my math, that's 0.25%- hardly the sort of
probability that should foster a rule of thumb "run away quickly if you
spot a blister". If a prospective buyer hires a decent surveyor and the
blisters are classified as "cosmetic", there would be no reason to pass
on a boat that was otherwise attractive. In fact, it's pretty common to
demand a further discount once blisters are discovered (most of the
time they are under the waterline and won't be seen until the survey
haulout), and then once the deal closes boat for many many years
without doing a darn thing about the unsightly but harmless pimples on
the bottom.

Pascoe's entire text on the subject:

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


Please elaborate on your rule of thumb.



Not worth the effort, but here is someone else's opinion. Note the
reference to delamination. SeaView site.



Glad you liked that Seaview article, it happens to be one of mine. I
did that interview with Phil for the magazine several years ago, and
they use it for their website.

When I had my boat in for its redo last spring, I had planned to have
the bottom completely stripped, a barrier coat applied, and new bottom
paint. Seaview stopped stripping off the old bottom paint when they
found some blisters. At no charge to me (at least for that) they did
some "test peels" where the skin out mat was removed and the laminate
below was examined. In each and every area tested there was *no*
evidence of delam below the mat, and that is the case in the
overwhelming majority of boats with gelcoat blisters. Seaview didn't
want to proceed with a barrier coat because of the possibilty that
blisters might continue to form and that could be confused with a
warranty issue in the future, but even Seaview agreed that there would
be no need to address the blisters unless I was concerned about
cosmetics.

Blistering can be evidence of delam, but there is no basis to conclude
that whenever one sees a blister there is likely delamination as well.
Nor is there any evidence that blistering will "lead to" delamination.

Thereby leading to my opinion and an opinion shared by a probable
majority of people who have looked into the blistering issue; in most
cases a blister is entirely cosmetic and a decent surveyor will be able
to tell a prospective buyer whether a specific case of blisters might
be that rare situation where the blisters are a visible indicator of a
deeper and structural problem.

Good article, too. Very informative.

NOYB wrote:
Pascoe is a boob...and has been run off every serious boating forum that he
used to post to.



That doesn't make him wrong on *everything*, and his treatise on the
causes and significance of cosmetic gelcoat blisters is one of the best
things he ever produced.

My main heartburn with DP is his propensity for posting photos of boats
just beat to hell, and in many cases literally falling apart, without
disclosing that he was surveying the boats for various insurance
companies after hurricanes down in Florida. A boat that gets blown off
a rack storage unit, for example, and falls about 30 feet to land on
its beam on the asphalt below is being subjected to stresses and
impacts that 99% of boaters will never have to endure- unless they
strike log at 40mph- (sideways). There is at least one case where he
represents a botched repair, (heck, the materials don't even match), as
an example of shoddy construction techniques. He makes some errors when
describing mechanical systems (including the infamous "diesel
sparkplug" reference), but he is pretty well grounded in his technical
knowledge of laminates and other structural subjects, IMO.

If you've got some information that refutes DP's analysis of blisters,
(aside from "everybody knows" sort of comments or a disparaging
personal remark), bring it on. :-)

"Eisboch" wrote in message
...

"JoeSpareBedroom" wrote in message
...
"Harry Krause" wrote in message
. ..
On 11/7/2006 12:02 PM, JoeSpareBedroom wrote:
"Eisboch" wrote in message
...
"JoeSpareBedroom" wrote in message
...


Hang on tight! Sudden left turn: Does anyone make aluminum hulls in
the 30-ish foot range? If not, why not? Please provide a 3 page
essay, single spaced.
Yes.


You get an A minus.


Here's an interesting site:

http://www.billmunsonboats.com/

I was thinking of more stylish, traditional hulls, like my magnificent
Lund yacht, but bigger.

http://www.fairmetalboats.com/

Eisboch




http://www.acbboats.com/

www.harbercraft.com
http://www.bentzboats.com/

And lots of other Northwest boat builders. And a hell of a lot stonger and
nicer than a Lund.

Calif Bill wrote:

And lots of other Northwest boat builders.

http://www.precisionweldboats.com/

"-rick-" wrote in message
. ..
Calif Bill wrote:

And lots of other Northwest boat builders.

http://www.precisionweldboats.com/



I do not think Tom makes a 30'er. At least yet.