Hull has been soda blasted, to barrier or not?

[Maine Sail]

Mitchel sorry you read that the way you did. Please let me try and clarify..

It is my feeling, either right or wrong, and gathered over many years of conversations with a few who have this perception, that the people who don't like barrier coating most likely do not like it because they have seen or heard of the many horror stories from barrier coat jobs gone awry.

This is NOT the neigh sayers fault and I'm NOT calling the neigh sayers idiots! I meant the people who refuse to read the installation & application instructions, or to adhere to them, idiots and that comment WILL stand because I know of no other word other than perhaps morons that fits people who will gladly take 4K plus of your money then apply the product incorrectly!!

I'm not going to edit my original post, other than to add the words "boatyard owners and employees", or to remove this because folks need to know that too many boatyards CUT corners when doing barrier coat jobs. It was my bad to include or to appear to include "boat owners" who install it incorrectly.

Boat owners get a pass, somewhat, in that the majority don't fully understand the concept of "dry" like a boat yard does. I do feel strongly though that they should research this a little more before doing all that labor and spending all that money!!..

There are MANY good yards that refuse to apply barrier coats until the hull is dry but sadly many many more that won't let it dry in favor of the almighty buck..

It is understandable why some folks don't like or disagree with barrier coatings given the dreadful adherence to the simple directions on the can!! Unless the folks who "dislike" the use of barrier coatings fully understand what could have, or did go wrong, such as not drying out a hull properly before application, you can't blame them for thinking barrier coats are bad when "blisters still pop through" because most sailors I come across have NO clue the hull needs to be dry before applying a barrier coat. But, you can't expect them to, the neigh sayers that is, because unlike the folks who HAVE installed it they have not yet had a chance to actually read the directions and it's very tough to garner an informed decision without first understanding the complexities.

I don't know about you but I normally don't go around reading installation instructions on products I'm not using. Again I did NOT call the neigh sayers idiots! I called the folks who don't read instructions, or do, and choose to ignore them (read; boat yards that KNOW BETTER), and rip you off anyway the idiots. If you disagree that the latter category of "instruction agnostics", the ones who refuse to follow simple directions, should not be called idiots, scam artists, knuckle heads, morons, buffoons or just plain lazy then I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

A buddy of mine was scammed out of close to 9k, actually his half was 4.5k, by a boat yard in MD where he purchased a boat. He spit this 9k with the seller to repair blisters before trucking the boat North (my buddy has admitted to being an idiot for not having the boat repaired up here BTW). This yard hauled the boat and the job was complete in four weeks!!! By the time he hauled it that fall he had over 20 new blisters! Those are the folks, that did that job, I'm calling idiots and I stand by it!

My comment about idiots is in direct relation to boat yards (of which three are too many) who are far to willing to strip a buck from your palm without FOLLOWING THE DIRECTIONS!!! In his case they did not care, even though they surely knew better, because they understood the boat was being trucked back to the NE and the owner would never pay to truck back there for repair.. Sad really! I'm sure there are now a few more sailors (read' neigh sayers) that have seen his barrier coat job gone bad that now don't like barrier coats. This is even sadder because their conceptual basis of barrier coating is totally skewed because of an improper installation but how would they know?

By the way my post is not unsigned I use a screen name and NEVER run and hide from my postings. There is a link, in my signature, directly to my web site where you will find my direct email address. I answer all emails personally!!! For security and safety purposes I use a screen name as I feel others should as well or at least keep it to Mitchel B. It's your identity though...


Follow me on this one:

"Hi guys were going sailing for the last week in August where should we go?" or "We plan to join the CDSOA rendezvous and will be there for the entire time"

OK now let's pretend I'm an on line thief and I now know your full name, where your from, and that you are leaving your house for a week..

Consider it that's all I ask...



P.S. You NEED a moisture meter to do a PROPER barrier coat job or months on the hard if you already had or have blisters! Dry to the touch does NOT cut it boat yards KNOW this and there is NO excuse...

[Ron M.]

Thanks, Maine Sail for some well thought insight to this subject and I concur that the most common reason for a system failing is do to improper application -----not following the instructions-------
I did a barrier coat job a couple of years ago as a preventive measure, ( I had no blister issues). The boat was on the hard for a full year prior to application and I haven't looked back.
Gel coat is not waterproof when immersed, even less so after soda blasted. Common sense.
________
Max friz

[mahalocd36]

Who knew this subject could be like wheel vs. tiller or prop-locking? I never knew there was a controversy regarding barrier coating. I just thought if you had gone to all the trouble of getting the boat down to the bare bottom, and let her dry out, that of course you did it. We did that on our previous S2, and the POs of Mahalo did that (well, Robinhood did) before we bought her. (Our S2 had been out of the water for years). Not saying it was right, I guess I just assumed you always did it if you had the opportunity. Not sure what you have to lose besides $$. After seeing Mahalo's perfect hull after the 6 years we've had her, I guess I would do it again on my next boat.

[John Danicic]

I have a few questions about barrier coats. Really, how much water does an unprotected hull absorb? How much can it absorb? If you have few or no blisters, is your hull absorbing water?
Is salt water more permeable then fresh water?

And does absorbing some water really matter if you have few or no blisters? That said, is a barrier coat really necessary if you have no blisters?

I imagine one could do hull moisture measurements in the spring before launch and compare them to measurements soon after take-out and extrapolate from that. Or weight the boat. Has anyone done this?

And then, has anyone taken moisture measurements of a barrier coated hull to see if it too absorbs moisture?

With a 25 year old boat who exhibits no blisters, has had the same bottom paint for at least half that time, and sits out of the water for 6 months of the year, I have to wonder if barrier coats are necessary. Any takers?

Sail on

John Danicic
CD 36 -Mariah- #124
Lake Superior

[Dean Abramson]

John,

My 25D came with no blisters, but lots of bottom paint layers. I stripped it with chemical stripper, and then the yard sanded and did an epoxy barrier coat. In twelve years, I never had a single blister.

The 31 came with a murky history and a problematic bottom. I was having it sanded down to the gelcoat to put on a barrier coat when major chunks of some type of filler, and gelcoat, started falling out. We came to realize that the boat had had major blistering at some point - hundreds of blisters - and some type of repair had been done, poorly. Apparently it had not been prepped right, at least. The gelcoat was shot, so we had that removed entirely, and then they did the work I described in the post above. It has only been one season so far with the new bottom, but it is flawless.

The 31 came from North Carolina and had probably been in the water pretty much full-time, even though it was out when we bought it. (It had been advertised as having "no blisters," and there were none visible at purchase time, either to me or to the surveyor.) Clay Stalker told me not to buy a southern boat, and I probably wouldn't do it again! :-( (Even though I am a native southerner.)

Having said that, I should mention that I also looked at three CDs in the northeast, all boats which had been hauled annually, that had some blisters. Two of the owners allowed as to how they did some blister repair each year.

So all I can say is that I have had two barrier coats, and (so far) they have worked great. I would not recommend removing gelcoat unless you are in the kind of dire straights we were. But man, if the boat is already dry, and you are only debating whether to barrier coat or go straight to the bottom paint... well, to me it is false frugality not to do it.

Calling Sea Hunt. One thing we noticed (after we got the boat...) was that the boot stripe and bottom paint, at the midpoint, were about 6" higher on one side than the other. It was then that the seeds had been sown in my brain that some funky work had been done to the boat in the past. But you can imagine, when it was all over, how much it mattered to me what condition the boot stripe was in! (Does that make you feel better?) :-)

Gelcoat is not impermeable to water. It is old chemistry. If it were not for cost and aesthetic reasons, most new boats would now be finished with epoxy, I think. Some high-end boats are.

I say do the barrier coat if the boat is dry and currently has no bottom paint yet.

(And if you are shopping for boats, don't think a surveyor is necessarily good just because he belongs to both SAMS and NAMS.)

Finally, we still LOVE the boat. It came with lots of great gear and is otherwise in great shape. But a few gallons of barrier coat looks really cheap to me!

I hope that this has been helpful. I wish I could say it was cathartic to tell the tale. All the Loda May's secrets are out there now. At least I hope so.

Dean

[aja]

Well I've heard you can't discuss religion or politics - but I've never heard of a barrier coat zealot before.

Maine Sail, if you are so fervent about "reading instructions" and "following directions", then I suggest that you try reading your own owner's manual, the Holy Bible. Maybe then you would be a little less self righteous, a little less judgemental, a little less nasty, a little more trusting of people and you'd probably find you have better things to do with your time than the time you spent on that last post. Wow.

Happy Easter,
Diana

[Matt Cawthorne]

When I bought my boat it had many small blisters. Nothing huge, but it was something that needed to be done. I used West system epoxy and the boat was blister free wherever I had applied the barrier coat for over 10 years. I did not barrier coat up quite to the waterline as I did not realize that the waterline had risen because of added weight. Where there was no barrier coat the blisters continued until I went back and coated that area. After about 11 or 12 years I have found a few pea sized blisters each year. In each case the blister was either between two layers of gelocat (there should only have been one, but there must have been some overlap somewhere) or where I had not cleaned the boat thoroughly enough and the barrier coat itself lifted. In my mind, do it. Barrier coats do not stop water, but they slow it down dramatically. A boat hull can absorb several percent of their weight in water. If you run the calculations that is a great deal of water. Do it now and you will have some cheap insurance.

[David van den Burgh]

With a 25 year old boat who exhibits no blisters, has had the same bottom paint for at least half that time, and sits out of the water for 6 months of the year, I have to wonder if barrier coats are necessary. Any takers?

John,

I say follow the old adage: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Whether Ariel, our CD36, ever had a blister problem, I don't know. I do know that since the PO covered her hull in barrier coat that there have been hundreds of tiny "blisters" where water has been trapped between the gel coat and the barrier coat. My guess is that the boat never had a blister problem, but the PO decided it would be wise to barrier coat as a preventative measure. As Maine Sail suggested, the PO (or the yard) probably didn't understand the process and didn't allow enough dry time, didn't prep the surface properly, and/or didn't apply enough material to do the job.

The truly unfortunate part is that the PO sanded off way too much material (gel coat) when prepping the hull for barrier coat. Now, I fear, we will be forced to re-barrier coat when we finally remove the old, ineffective coating. Not only will we have to invest the time and energy, but a significant wad of cash.

All that to say: I wish the PO of our freshwater CD36 had left well enough alone.

[bottomscraper]

All that to say: I wish the PO of our freshwater CD36 had left well enough alone.

I am no expert on the topic but I did read that fresh water passes through gelcoat faster than salt and actually fresh water boats are subject to more blister problems. I'm not 100% sure but I think it may have been in "Surveying Fiberglass Sailboats by Henry Mustin". Take that with as many grains of sea salt as you wish!

[John Danicic]

To all:

It does seem that this may be a saltwater problem and or a maybe, a sitting too long in the water problem. As I start, "thinking" about painting my bottom, (not this year), the thought of going the whole route; complete paint removal of the little that is left, barrier coat, and then repaint seem mercurial to me. My brother's CD33 has more gell coat then paint showing on his hull and no blisters either. (My bottom at least looks decent healed over, his looks like a helter-skelter patchwork quilt.) The six months the boat has sat out every year of her life does seem to be the key to the lack of blisters. Since I have no plans of going "down lake" and out to the salty sea for at least 10 years if ever, this may be one of those eminent benefits of cold, fresh water that makes up for the numerous weather related drawbacks of Northern sailing.

However, I am intrigued to determine just how much a gell coated hull absorbs moisture vs. a barrier coated hull and just may put a moisture meter on my list of electronic doodad's to get. Any suggestions as to the best kind or make?

Sail on

John Danicic
CD 36 -Mariah- #124
Lake Superior

[Kurt]

I've barrier coated three different boats I've owned over the past 35 years. The procedure was to strip/abrade the hull in the fall and barrier coat in the spring. The second boat I did was a 1985 CD26 that had literally thousands of tiny blisters between the gelcoat and underlying laminate. I removed most of the gelcoat on that boat. The other two boats (1968 SeaSprite & 1980 CD27) had minor blistering and while I didn't remove the gelcoat, I did thoroughly sand back to bare gelcoat and then some.
I used a coal tar epoxy on the first boat which I barrier coated in 1985. I used System3 epoxy resin on the last two boats which I did in 1993 and 2004. I added different color pigments to the clear epoxy as I applied it to keep track of the coats. I used about 2 gallons of epoxy on the 23' SeaSprite and 3 gallons each on the CD26 & 27.
I never had another blister appear on any of the 3 hulls. I lost track of the Sea Sprite but still see the CD26 once in a while and still no blisters after 14 years. Bottom line...If you plan on keeping your boat for a long time, I unhesitatingly recommend barrier coating with epoxy resin.

[David van den Burgh]

I am no expert on the topic but I did read that fresh water passes through gelcoat faster than salt and actually fresh water boats are subject to more blister problems. I'm not 100% sure but I think it may have been in "Surveying Fiberglass Sailboats by Henry Mustin". Take that with as many grains of sea salt as you wish!

I've read that too, but with nary a genuine osmotic blister in 29 years of freshwater sailing I figure we might just be in the clear.

[S/V Necessity]

I don't know if I can agree with all of main sails verbage, but one thing is for sure, he is familiar with what kind of work some high priced yards do... I think many of them are guilty of turning around bottom jobs in an impossible amount of time. And that's probably just the tip of the iceberg. There is an awful lot of shoddy work done out there by "qualified yards" As a friend once put it: "lets face it the majority of the work force is being paid $10 an hour...."

*BAD WORK DOES HAPPEN*

While on a large expensive job the temptation is to pay the money and leave the worry to someone else, this is probably a bad choice. You still need to do some research and ask some tough questions, and be nosy.

Also, put me into the camp of *if the hull is dry* go ahead and barrier coat it. If sealing the bottom of your boat up is bad, then why even worry about the condition of the gelcoat at all? I seriously doubt that gelcoat allows moisture to escape faster than it allows it to penetrate.... If you do suscribe to the "hull needs to breathe" point of view, certainly you don't think the portion of the hull that's immersed in water should breath, do you?

[GrFa]

Thanks for all the responses.

I feel I need to clarify the boats history a bit more. We purchased it in Forked River, NJ on Barnegat Bay-saltwater. It was in that area for many years before we got it. I do not know how often it was hauled. It had many layers of non-ablative bottom paint that had built up.h Now it is kept in the Hudson-brackish water. We haul it every season, and it only stays in the water May to October.

There is no evidence of prior blistering but there is evidence of previous fiberglass repairs to the rudder and keel. What we can see now that the boat is stripped is a greenish colored fairing compound which was under the bottom paint. Also, fiberglass matting dried out and exposed on the rudder. Anyone know the construction of the rudder?

I am leaning towards priming and bottom painting at the moment. There seems to be no definitive opinion on barrier coating while most if not all had positive experiences with plain old bottom painting. Also, keeping in mind we plan on hauling and storing every winter and the boat only stays in the water for half the year. If this proves not to be the optimal solution the ablative paint will wear off enough that we could get back to bare bottom relatively easily and try a different route (barrier coating).

Thanks again! I will be sure to take pictures of the project.

[Dean Abramson]

GrFa,

See the article by my acquaintance Ken Textor in the current Cruising World. He knows his stuff.

Good luck with it.

Dean