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