Holy Blisters Batman

[LIforrelaxin]

Well Forum don't fail me now with a lack of advice. I took the boat to the Marina and pulled it out for the year. As they hoisted the boat out and started to wash the bottom of the boat, and in a matter of momments my heart dropped as a section of the hull right at the waterline was riddled with Blisters.. ..This was definately a new development as earlier this year I had inspected the hull while the boat was in the water and all was fine. I had also examined the hull at the end of last year and it was fine as well. Needless to say I need to do something the question is what. Here are the suggestions I have been give by various sources:

1) Dealership I bought the boat at suggested that they could take the boat strip down the gel coat in the effected area and re-gel coat it.....I am sure this would work but what about the rest of the Hull?

2) Was told by another dealership.... awww its only cosmetic I would leave it, fixing it and bottom coating it will only devalue the boat....

3) By two Fiberglass repair facilities it was suggested that the affected area be sanded down and the blisters cleaned up and then refilled with gel and smoothed. And then to seal the hull from the waterline down with a product from Interlux called interprotect 2000.
a) now one facility recomended doing nothing after the coating of
interprotect
b) the second facility recomended putting a product call VC
performance over the interportect coating

Does anyone have any experience or recomendations on any of this?

Has anybody dealt with either Unique Boat Restoration in Moultonboro or a company called North East Fiberglass.....

Thanks in advance for any advice......

[wildwoodfam]

Sorry could not resist the temptation...ok, back to the topic. Since your dealership has offered to fix the problem why not go with that solution? Have heard and read good things about Unique Boat Restoration in Moultonboro, but nothing first hand. Most people say that blisters are primarliy cosmetic...we've had a couple develop over the years and left them alone. But they were below water line and really I think there are maybe three on the boat. Good luck!

[secondcurve]

LI:

What type of boat do you own and what is the year of manufacture?

[dan]

Originally Posted by LIforrelaxin

Well Forum don't fail me now with a lack of advice. I took the boat to the Marina and pulled it out for the year. As they hoisted the boat out and started to wash the bottom of the boat, and in a matter of momments my heart dropped as a section of the hull right at the waterline was riddled with Blisters.. ..This was definately a new development as earlier this year I had inspected the hull while the boat was in the water and all was fine. I had also examined the hull at the end of last year and it was fine as well. Needless to say I need to do something the question is what. Here are the suggestions I have been give by various sources:

1) Dealership I bought the boat at suggested that they could take the boat strip down the gel coat in the effected area and re-gel coat it.....I am sure this would work but what about the rest of the Hull?

2) Was told by another dealership.... awww its only cosmetic I would leave it, fixing it and bottom coating it will only devalue the boat....

3) By two Fiberglass repair facilities it was suggested that the affected area be sanded down and the blisters cleaned up and then refilled with gel and smoothed. And then two seal the hull from the waterline down with a product from Interlux called interprotect 2000.
a) now one facility recomended doing nothing after the coating of
interprotect
b) the second facility recomended putting a product call VC
performance over the interportect coating

Does anyone have any experience or recomendations on any of this?

Has anybody dealt with either Unique Boat Restoration in Moultonboro or a company called North East Fiberglass.....

Thanks in advance for any advice......

I have had 2 major jobs on two different boats, both of which have been replaced. One of the new boats has had gel coat issues. The dealer is in North Carolina so the factory allowed me to pick the shop I wanted to make the repairs. Tom did a great job on the first two so I took the new one to him. Even knowing where he had repaired it you could not tell it had been worked on. Unfortunately there was another small interior crack this year and it was back to Tom again. I don't post much and learned a long time ago not to recommend what others should do however I feel you will be very happy with any work you have done at U B R.

[LIforrelaxin]

Originally Posted by secondcurve

LI:

What type of boat do you own and what is the year of manufacture?

It is a 2001 Four Winns that I purchased used. According to what I know at this point even if Four Winns had a waranty on the hull and gel coat it has now expired. Even on there current new boats Four Winns only warrenties the gel coat for 5 years......

[Winnipesaukee]

What to do depends on the size and amount of blisters.

If you want it done right (and want to do it yourself), sand the blisters and the gel down to the glass. WEAR GOGGLES. When you sand the blisters, they might pop and squirt stuff that you don't want in your eyes. Keep sanding until you get "good glass," if there is a void. Good glass is saturated with resin, not "dry" like a fiberglass cloth. Glass over it with high quality resin and re-gelcoat it with "good stuff."

If you don't want to do it yourself, disregard above and bring it to a glass shop.

[LIforrelaxin]

Originally Posted by Winnipesaukee

If you don't want to do it yourself, disregard above and bring it to a glass shop.

This is definatly going to a glass shop...... it is a fair sized section that is effected..... not something I would want to attempt....

[Dave R]

There were a couple of articles recently in Passage Maker magazine (August 2006 and September 2006, back issues area available) dealing with how blisters form, how to prevent them and how to fix them. They are easily the most comprehensive articles on the subject that I have ever seen. I'd read them prior to doing anything.

[jrc]

Blisters are almost always just cosmetic, not structural. On a seven year old boat, I would consider a less drastic approach, before tearing up an otherwise sound hull. Let the boat sit over the winter, the blisters may dry up on their own. A lot of boats have blisters in the fall that are gone in spring.

If they're gone, then think about have a barrier coating applied, call Four Winns and see what they used or recommend, it worked for seven years. This may reduce the future blistering, or if you're lucky prevent it. Even if they're still there in the spring think about living with them unless they are really horrible.

[Winnipesaukee]

If you let the blisters dry up, they will almost always come back when dropped back in the water, unfortunately.

[jlrm73]

We have also had some work done by Unique--they are great over there!

[dmjr]

Call Don @ Musky's Auto Body in Moultonborough, 603-284-6435. He does fiberglass & gelcoat repair.

[jeffk]

Great job. Some friends thought I had a brand new boat.

They are busy so allow time for them to fit you in.

[Doyboy]

We've got three Honda jets ski's that have all been in the water for the same amount of time and one of them has these blisters all over the bottom and the other two do not. Very strange looking. Almost looks like alligator skin. I was wondering is it a defect or lack of maintenance? Will waxing the gelcoat more often reduce the possibility of developing these blisters?

[Winnipesaukee]

Yes, it is most likely a manufacturing defect. How old are the jet skis? What usually happens in a "shoddy job" is when the fiberglass is laid, the resin doesn't totally saturate the fiberglass cloth, causing "dry" glass to form. This "dry" glass creates a bubble or "void" which will eventually fill with water if the gelcoat is water permeable. Since it is cheaper to build with lower quality (more permeable) resins, many builders will do so.

If the boats are different years, Honda may have used different resins (or simply build a somewhat shoddy hull).

Beneteau sailboats were known to have this happen in the '80s. Their resin supplier switched to a more water permeable resin without telling them. As a result, many owner's hulls began to blister.

[LIforrelaxin]

Originally Posted by LIforrelaxin

1) Dealership I bought the boat at suggested that they could take the boat strip down the gel coat in the effected area and re-gel coat it.....I am sure this would work but what about the rest of the Hull?

2) Was told by another dealership.... awww its only cosmetic I would leave it, fixing it and bottom coating it will only devalue the boat....

3) By two Fiberglass repair facilities it was suggested that the affected area be sanded down and the blisters cleaned up and then refilled with gel and smoothed. And then to seal the hull from the waterline down with a product from Interlux called interprotect 2000.
a) now one facility recomended doing nothing after the coating of
interprotect
b) the second facility recomended putting a product call VC
performance over the interportect coating

Does anyone have any experience or recomendations on any of this?

Has anybody dealt with either Unique Boat Restoration in Moultonboro or a company called North East Fiberglass.....

Thanks in advance for any advice......

Well after reading many articles and talking with many people here is what I found, hopefully be posting what I found someone will be able to read this thread in the future and get some guidence.

1) From what I have read the idea that Blisters are only cosmetic is a somewhat short sighted view. What I got from the reading I did was that sure enough when blisters start they are inocent enough. It is the effect that the water has over time reacting with the resins and so fourth that causes the damage. In the Northeast we are lucky from the stand point that we take our boats out every year for several months which gives the blisters a chance to dry out and slow the damage rate. But eventually a great deal of damage can occur leading to hull integrity damage. This is an issue that will never get better once it has started.

2) The permeability of the gel coat as some other posters have indicated is dependant on the types of Resin used. There where 3 main types that where consistently talked about. Not wanting to get any of that wrong I am not going to post that, but if you search the web there is more then enough information out there.

3) Along with the permeablity of the resins used as another poster suggested bad workmanship leading to fiber glass not getting sufficiently soaked in resin there for causeing bonding issues to the gelcoat and lead to blisters.

4) Once the blisters start you need to pay attention to them. What appears to have happend in my case is that this all started inocently with a single blister, that got water traped and froze over the winter, causing a split in the gel coat. From there water was able to get in easier and I think caused the blistering to spread. (this is my theory) As for when it is time to do something about the blistering that is a personal call, I would say better sooner then later.

Now as for what to do to fix the problem.

First let me say that I didn't find anyone or anything that said they could 100% do something and the blisters would never come back.

when I first started this endevor I stated the 4 recomendations I had gotten as it turns out the recomendations from the two dealers I talked to where not, in my mind the best solutions. So right away after reading a few articles I quickly ruled out, just doing nothing, as well as just sanding down and re-gelling the effected area. Nor did I find any published work to support those two fixes.

What I did find articles on, and in fact was recomended by the manufacture is to repair the blister section of hull and then apply an epoxy barrier to the entire hull below the waterline. What I found interesting was what was writen about the necessity to fix the blistered section of hull. It is not just simply good enough to let the boat sit and dry out and then cover the hull with the epoxy barrier.... It is suggested that you sand down the blisters and let everything dry out. they even make a tool to test the mosture content of the gel coat and fiber glass (there were actually a couple of ways to do this, up to and including coreing out a section of the hull....that is the most damaging way to do it luckily there are less damaging ways)... once everything is dried out sufficiently, the surounding gel coat and fiberglass needs to be repaired if any damage is present. Once all repairs are made then the barrier can be applied.

I don't know how many different barrier coats are available. I found that one was recomended consistently. But there are certain to be others. The barrier coat does appear to be tricky to apply and appears to be best handled by a pro. There are time constriaints as to how quickly coats must be applied and from start to finish how long the whole process can take.

After the barrier coat, I have found some mixed advice, some say it is fine by itself. While others say you should apply something over it. I personally think this has more to do with cometics from what I can tell. The product I plan to have used is more of a matte finish, and what has been recomend to put over it has been something that will have a bit more of a semi gloss finish. While the barrier appears to be very hard and doesn't require maintance unless it scraped up, which would be hard in my estimation the stuff cures extremely hard. I worry that anything put over it my eventually wear down and need to be re-applied down the road.

My quess is I will not have anything put over the barrier. But I believe that will also be dictated by who will do the work, which I am still trying to decide on. This is not a inexpensive endeavor to start on, and I want to make sure I have confidence in the person doing the work. Also because of the expense it you do and I have considered the age of the boat, how long you plan to keep it, and how much of an issue the blisters are. In my case I plan to have the boat for a while, and the section of hull effected is pretty big and quite blistered.

I will let you all know how things turn out in the spring once the work is done.

The information in this post is my interpretation of the information I found on the subject, others are certain to have different views, I offer this simply as advice.

[SIKSUKR]

Sounds to me like you did your homework.

[Captain Zipper]

Wow, quite the education you got, huh?

Here is the easiest fix, have your wife get a job ($$) and then trade the boat in and get a new one.

CZ

[LIforrelaxin]

Originally Posted by Captain Zipper

Wow, quite the education you got, huh?

Here is the easiest fix, have your wife get a job ($$) and then trade the boat in and get a new one.

CZ

Hummmm..... someone got a wife I can barrow for a couple of years.....

[Captain Zipper]

LI,

I'm sorry for your loss.


How long would you like mine for?.............

[LIforrelaxin]

Well I promised to post updates on this project of mine. So here I go. Last week my precious toy, was taken from its winter resting spot and taken to Northeastern Fiberglass. As promised they called me, to let me know things were starting and that they wanted me to come and take a look, and discuss how far up above the waterline the epoxy barrier would come, as well as how the blend line would be handled. I opted not to having any finish put over the innerpertect barrier, which ment there would be some color variation from the epoxy barrier to the gelcoat of the boat. They had a nice two color pinstriping idea in mind and it was a beautful match for the colors already on the boat. Over all after the meeting I felt very comfortable that my Baby was in good hands. The only downside of the afternoon, was seeing the bottom of the boat all sanded down.... well that and all the darn ice on the lakes...... hope you snowmobiliers and skiers are enjoying your season......

More to come, the hope is that next weekend I will get to see the boat with the barrier applied.....

Ah my favorite definition of a boat..... a hole in the water (or in the current case air) into which one pours money.

[fatlazyless]

Livn on the down & out Walmart side of the lake, redoing a hull would be one or two, nine dollar quarts of blue Rustoleum paint, and a six-pack of #36 sandpaper for the finish sander........no-kidding! Blisters in a 35 year old aluminum boat.....no-way!