Hi there! I am a proud new owner of a 1987 Compac 19. Seeking advise on the hull, the paint has a lot of chips, see pics. Had a survey done that found the hull to be dry and I don't see any 'blisters'. I keep the boat on Portage Lake, Onekama MI and it's currently in cold indoor storage. This is my first boat, besides 30 years sailing a Laser, so I'm new to maintaining painted hulls. Any suggestions?
Welcome and congrats on the new yacht! You may want to take some closeup pictures of the chipped areas. I am no expert but there are plenty available. Obviously we all want to see pictures of your boat too.
Dale
can you talk to the previous owner? find out: 1. if an epoxy based barrier coat was put on the bare fiberglass hull? 2. the red you see is an antifouling paint, what type, hard or ablative. With that knowledge and maybe a closeup picture of one of the chips we can probably help.
I will go out on a limb and say what you see here are blisters. Been there, seen them. To prove the point or not, sand the area dead center of the picture left to right and one fifth the way down from the top. If that location suddenly shows a "chip" it is raised proud of the hull surface.
My 19 suffered the same issue. I would bet this vessel spent all summer every summer in the water.
The Fix"? Sand the entire bottom, apply penetrating epoxy sealer especially to the areas bereft of gel coat (it will really sink in to those spots) and over the entire bottom, fair those "chips" with thickened epoxy, sand fair, apply 3-4 alternating colors of high build epoxy barrier coating and apply the bottom paint of your choice. In fresh water, ablative bottom paint is a bit of overkill.
Its a lot of work, but worth it.
TG
I looked at your picture for a little bit, and if you want some over phone advice, hit me with a message with a phone number and time to call ya.
Id gladly fill ya with knowledge, hell, so much ran through my head just sitting here it is just way too much to type out, maybe one day I will make a article on here to help yall out.
For now that is the best offer I have, Just to let ya know, did Fiberglass boat work professionally for 18 years and ive been out for about 3 years roughly, but would gladly share the info.
Side note: kinda with Tim on the Blister thing, but also have seen some paint jobs with poor prep or over painted do the same kind of thing.
Just offering some help
Mac
he knows his stuff. he did a great job on my old ranger bass boat
Hey everyone, thanks for the replies! Unfortunately I'm not in touch with the previous owner to get more details on the history. I guess this hull-paint topic is not so straight-forward so I'll have to revisit this topic in the spring when I can take a closer look; she's in winter storage about 4 hours away (in Michigan we say 'Up North'). Stay tuned!!