How to treat a moist hull?
 

Dear friends,

I have a question:
my boat has a high level of moisture in the hull but I don't see blisters.
Somebody saya that in this situation is better dont do any treatment, any
epoxy barrier coat, because it can be even more dangereuse.
Others say to apply a thick epoxy barrier to decrease the volume of water
coming in the grp.
I'm a bit confused. What is your opinion and suggestion?

Fair wind.

Yus

How to treat a moist hull?
 

Trailer boat or in a slip? It is very difficult to dry the glass out from
the outside presuming it has gelcoat on it. If you can circulate some air
across the inside of the glass you might lower the content that way. But
most smaller boats have a bunch of foam in the bilge so you can't do that.
I don't know enough to tell you if you should barrier coat it or not. Might
be if you could just store it inside over next winter it will go down on
it's own. All depends on how big the boat is.

"yusuf" wrote in message
. ..
Dear friends,

I have a question:
my boat has a high level of moisture in the hull but I don't see
blisters.
Somebody saya that in this situation is better dont do any treatment, any
epoxy barrier coat, because it can be even more dangereuse.
Others say to apply a thick epoxy barrier to decrease the volume of water
coming in the grp.
I'm a bit confused. What is your opinion and suggestion?

Fair wind.

Yus

How to treat a moist hull?
 

On May 4, 11:20�pm, "yusuf" wrote:
Dear friends,

I have a question:
my boat has a high level of moisture in the hull but I don't see *blisters.
Somebody saya that in this situation is better dont do any treatment, any
epoxy barrier coat, because it can be even more dangereuse.
Others say to apply a thick epoxy barrier to decrease the volume of water
coming in the grp.
I'm a bit confused. What is your opinion and suggestion?

Fair wind.

Yus

What makes you think you've got a "high level of moisture" in the
hull?

A common mistake is the use of a moisture meter on gelcoat during a
haulout.
Always be slightly suspicious is the moisture meter is wielded by
somebody with a vested interest in selling you a $XXXXX.XX bottom
peel.

Gelcoat is porous. Water is supposed to pass through gelcoat.
Following a haul out you can nearly always get a high moisture content
reading on the gelcoat.

To *really* see whether you have a water saturated laminate, you need
to do a "test peel". Pick an area a couple of feet square, and rout
(peel) away the material to a depth sufficient to remove the gelcoat
and the skinout mat. Let that sit a day or so, (protected from rain,
pressure washers, etc) and *then* use your moisture meter on the
laminate. Far more often than not, the problem will have disappeared
along with the gelcoat. If no problem, glass over the test peel, apply
appropriate bottom paint, and away you go.

If a problem really exists, peel the hull down a bit and apply a
couple of layers of vinylester to build it back up. Whoever advised
you that simply throwing a barrier coat on a wet hull would be a waste
of time was correct...the good news is that the frequency of wet hull
syndrome is actually pretty rare. Some boatyards do dearly love those
120 "laydays" to dry out the hull, so before spending big $$$$$ on a
possibly less-than-objective analysis you might want to get a local
surveyor to look at it.......and even then perhaps get a second lcoal
opinion.

How to treat a moist hull?
 

On May 5, 1:20 am, "yusuf" wrote:
Dear friends,

I have a question:
my boat has a high level of moisture in the hull but I don't see blisters.
Somebody saya that in this situation is better dont do any treatment, any
epoxy barrier coat, because it can be even more dangereuse.
Others say to apply a thick epoxy barrier to decrease the volume of water
coming in the grp.
I'm a bit confused. What is your opinion and suggestion?

Fair wind.

Yus

If you don't have blisters, don't mess with it. Don't know why you
were checking moisture levels, but it's pretty hard to do accurately.
Moisture meters are very finicky, and you need to have the boat out of
the water awhile before you can even attempt to measure it.

How to treat a moist hull?
 

On Sat, 5 May 2007 08:20:03 +0200, "yusuf" wrote:

Dear friends,

I have a question:
my boat has a high level of moisture in the hull but I don't see blisters.
Somebody saya that in this situation is better dont do any treatment, any
epoxy barrier coat, because it can be even more dangereuse.
Others say to apply a thick epoxy barrier to decrease the volume of water
coming in the grp.
I'm a bit confused. What is your opinion and suggestion?

How did you determine "high" level of moisture? As others have
suggested, this is a relative and sometimes subjective value - all
glass has moisture to a certain extent.

Why is this a problem for you. What is the nature of the repair,
painting or problem that led you to do a moisture check? Did you use
a good quality meter? Did you read the measurement correctly?

I don't mean to offend, but it takes a real glass expert to tell
exactly the nature of the problem. Perhaps you might want to talk to
a glass repair person first before making a determination of too much
moisture.