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Hello All from Down Under.
It being winter down here I've recently hauled Tondy out for an antifoul. At the time I noticed a number of little lumps on her hull but immediately went into denial. Surely it couldn't be OSMOSIS! I painted over them and quickly got her back in the water and tried to forget what I'd seen. Now, after a period of anger and sleepless nights I think I've come to the stage of acceptance. Yes I think there is a little bit of osmosis eating away at my hull. I am therefore, preparing myself to make repairs next time I haul her out.
It doesn't appear to be a terribly hard job, just dusty and time consuming. I will take lots of photos and keep you all in the loop once I get started however I just thought I'd see if anyone else has had similar issues. If so ,how did you deal with it. I plan to grind out each blister and refill with whatever special goop I can find between now and when I start. I've heard of an Arends 33 owner getting professionals to grind back the whole hull by approx 5mm (How thick are our hulls?) and recoat with some special goop mixed into the gel coat at a cost of $AU16,000.00. I don't need to do this as there are only a few blisters.
Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.
Dave
PS: I'm also replacing my spreaders and will post all info at a later date into your spreader replacement thread in case there's any other Ketch owners out there.
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Greetings!
My DE38 was also contaminated with the big O. I have written extensively about the problem and what I'm doing to fix it in the posts below. I am doing a major refit and the first thing I did out of the water was grind down the bottom to bare glass and let it dry. I will fill the blister holes and barrier coat as the last project before I splash the boat again.
http://www.thequestforwindandw......com/?p=73
http://www.thequestforwindandw......com/?p=74
http://www.thequestforwindandw......com/?p=75
http://www.thequestforwindandw......com/?p=76
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Thanks so much Erick,
1. It's great to know that I'm not alone. I thought I must have had the only Downeaster that hadn't been laid up properly.
2. It looks like I should probably prepare to be out of the water for longer than I had planned as I may well discover more blisters when I remove the antifoul
3. I am now talking to the English Co. that sells the mechanical Gelcoat Peelers and may use one of them.
4. If all goes well I may start a sideline business doing gelcoat peels for the more affluent owners around these parts.
5. You showed that although it is a very daunting task there is light at the end of the tunnel and you did an excellent job.
Thanks again and I'll let you know how it goes once I make a start.
Dave
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Good luck Dave! Grinding was slow and annoying work, but the cost of getting a pro peel job was out of my range. Purchasing a peeler with the idea of using it for some side money is a great idea.
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We just hauled Valkyr and the hull was good only 2 itsy bitsy blisters on the whole thing. Howver the rudder was eaten up with them. We ground them totally out with a 4 inch electric grinder with a grinding wheel on it.. 🙂 very aggressive so be carefull. It will take a blister out in about 4 seconds flat. Then we ground down the whole rudder abit to refair it. Used thickend west system epoxy to fill the blisters and sanded smooth. However we found some cracks in the rudder and decided to sand it down a bit more. gouged out the cracks and filled them with the thickend epoxy. Then wrapped the whole rudder in biaxial glass and epoxy. I took pictures of the it at each stage and will post them one day.. Luckly the yard I was at offered to do the work for me for 300 dollars. They sanded down, filled, glassed, and faired it all for that cost. This included griding down a previous bad job on the rudder shoe and refairing it and wrapping it in biaxial glass and epoxy also.
If the rudder hadn't had cracks in it and we were just filling the blisters all we would have done is grind them out and fill with the thickend epoxy, sanded smooth and then epoxied it, sanded and bottom painted. for big blisters I might cut some patches of glass cloth and epoxy them in and then fair them with thickend epoxy before bottom painting. I hope to strip the whole boat next time and put on a couple coats of barrier coat before putting bottom paint back on.
scott
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Thanks Scott,
All very interesting stuff. I've been reading up on the best way to make repairs and I've uncovered a minefield!
- http://www.osmosisinfo.com; is a 100 page doc that makes for interesting reading.
- Yachtsurvey.com has articles such as; "Failed Blister Repairs" A Case History and Solutions. by David Pascoe
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