One bad looking hull...

[AislinGirlII]

So several years after buying my CP23 (history mostly unknown, except I had a feeling it had been neglected over the years), I've gotten around to starting the job of stripping about a dozen layers of bottom paint off..and this is what I found on the starboard side. This pic is just ahead of the keel, and its about like this to the bow. Very small mostly, little finger nail size or less. First layer of paint next to gelcoat is not scraping off like ablative layers above, so maybe that was an original hard coat. Oddly everything looks dry, no weeping over the last week, guess I'll go buy a moisture meter...shoulda done this when I bought her I suppose

Gelcoat shows signs of some heavy course sanding/grinding with gouges, and is very very thin in this area. Looks like a long project ahead.

Did a test patch at the back of the port keel halfway up the stub, and it wasn't this bad, just a few in a foot square area.

Added a bow pic too...

[brackish]

Yep, kind of a mess.  When I lived on the coast there was a guy who traveled to all of the yards and bead blasted hulls.  He was very reasonable.  However, that was so many years ago, may not be anyone doing it.  I think he either used glass beads or walnut shells.  Got the job done fast, revealed everything and rough feathered the blisters.

Then of course, feathering, drying (tough down there, I remember most tented the hulls) filling with thickened epoxy, fairing and repainting.  Patience.

[AislinGirlII]

Thanks, Brackish - going to call around and see who does mobile visits these days..

[CoVianna]

Hi
That looks to be a sizeable job ahead but a 23 is worth it!
Have you watched any of the Sail Life videos? He is working on a massive job, currently sorting the hull. May give you some ideas.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5xDht2blPNWdVtl9PkDmgA
The videos deal with osmosis treatment. He is currently reglassing and fairing the hull.
Good luck.

[AislinGirlII]

That looks to be a sizeable job ahead but a 23 is worth it!

Yes, they are worth it, esp after you've bought them a new loose footed main, added remote controls to the cockpit, bought a chartplotter, added lines led aft to a winch and spinlock, etc., etc ' Lesson learned, look at the hull first then outfit LOL.

Good video link, thanks. I've done a small area of 6 or so blisters (on 2 different Chrysler 26's, both in exact same area at the bow), but never this many ! Can't wait to see the whole hull.

[NateD]

I went with 50' of 1/4 line. That includes leading it back tot he cockpit and it is probably a little long. It's the same size as my other halyards (never hurts to have something that can act as a back-up halyard). Mine is an adjustable halyard, but you could go with half the quantity of line (and less than half the price) if you wanted to knot it off on a strap mounted to the top of the mast and make it a fixed length boom topping lift.

[Gus]

Somebody went electric sander happy on your hull

[AislinGirlII]

Gus, I am seeing a lot of those signs as i hand strip the years (decades?)  of bottom paint off the rest of the hull. Theres a few spots on the keel that look like a true blister, but a lot damaged gel coat in front of the keel . Gel coat is paper thin around a lot of those bad spots. Some gouges too.

Decided I didn't want it to get worse, so I am stripping with a paint stripper to ease into it. Trying the Back To Nature, Citristrip, and Total boat brands and finding about the same effectiveness on all.  Only real difference seems to be thickness if the goop between them .

[Gus]

Sounds like a plan. Would it be wise to drill a whole at the bottom of the keel to see if water comes out?

[AislinGirlII]

Sounds like a plan. Would it be wise to drill a whole at the bottom of the keel to see if water comes out?

I just might. Nothing is quite like a wet concrete pour in a keel is there, LOL ?

[Gus]

That's one thing I don't like about the Compac 23, I can't inspect the bilge/keel area.

[Gus]

Well, I did a bit of reading, and the good news is that boat pox can be fixed with some work. Same author, two different books.

This old boat says to pop the blisters, let them dry then patch them. A newer book (Hull and something maintenance), says to strip all the gelcoat, let it dry, then apply 20 mils of barrier coat epoxy.

He mentions some boatyards have like a "peeler" to peel all the old gelcoat out, but you can also use a sander.

Hopefully the layers upon layers of bottom paint provided some water protection, but since is an ablative, I don't know.

I haven't gotten a chance to get my boat out of the water yet, and according to the previous owner he applied the barrier coat epoxy last year, so I guess we will see...

[moonlight]

I've done (or had done) blast and barrier coats on three sailboats in two years ...

Enjoy your time with Chemical Strippers.  They're just like the professional strippers, not much fun and don't get the job done!  Yep, that's a chauvanistic statement.

Your boat needs blasted, or peeled, by someone who knows what they're doing.  I have that guy, in the New Orleans area, if you're close.  But easing into it, taking off one layer at a time, well, you're wasting a LOT of time.

Once the surface is properly prepared, you don't even care if gelcoat still exists unless you're looking for a showroom finish on a clean hull.  So you apply four, maybe six layers of Interlux 2000E barrier coat.  Want to be fancy?  Apply two layers WHITE, two layers GRAY.  Then add your antifoulant of choice.

If ever when recoating antifouling, you see gray, well, you know where you are.  If you see white, again, you know where you are.  Four coats of that stuff with varied colors and you're sealed up tight and move on with no worries.  It sands and fairs easy, and with no weeping yet I doubt you'd find anything to really fair and fill and fair again once you've got the barrier coat gooped on right.

Two weeks max and you're in the water sailing, instead of in the yard stripping.

[brackish]

That's one thing I don't like about the Compac 23, I can't inspect the bilge/keel area.

True about the keel area unless you want to pull the cabin sole.  However the bilge area is readily accessible, at least on my 23.  It is the aft section of the keel and can be accessed by sliding under the companionway steps.  Never been anything to see in there.  I installed a 12v bilge pump, to supplement the manual pump, that gathers dust but never sees water unless I purposely put it in there to test the pump(s).