When my wife and I just recently purchased our new to us 1976 Pearson 365 Ketch, we knew there were some hull blisters and the bottom was due for painting, as it was painted about 3 years ago. A diver yesterday confirmed that to be the case. This is our first cruising sailboat and we are excited for upcoming better weather here in the Tampa, FL area to enjoy our new boat ownership. Based on what I've read online, repairing hull blisters could take weeks or months to dry out the hull, repair the blisters, and repaint. Not to mention the thousands of dollars in yard fees, labor, and materials.
We aren't financially prepared for that right now and we don't want to lose our prime sailing window. We have hired a diver to clean the bottom monthly. I'm certain that my fellow Pearson owners have dealt with this same issue along the way and I'm interested in your opinion on whether it makes sense to wait until next hurricane season to pull the boat repair the blisters and repaint the bottom.
Thank you all in advance for your help!
Eric Davis
S/V Pony on a Boat
Eric,
I don't think that I would worry about blisters on a 41 year old boat. Very small pockets of moisture in layup in the exterior of a solid fiberglass hull surrounded by water that probably averages better than a 1/2" below the waterline is relatively insignificant.
I would focus more on the condition of the mechanicals of the boat, (engine, transmission) its hoses, electrical, both standing and running rigging and enjoying the boat as often as possible.
Dale
Dale,
That was my thinking as well, but I thought it best to defer to those more experienced than I. She's a beauty and in great shape, however like with any boat, there is a never ending list of "To Do's".
I may haul her out to have the bottom painted once I have that money together. I'll inspect the blisters when she's out, but unless there's something crazy going on, I may just paint the bottom and revisit the issue in 2 or 3 years when it's time to do it all over again.
In the meantime, she's telling me she wants to sail!
Thank you, for the response!
Eric
I hauled Laelia in March 2017 and the yard found a few blisters while sanding the old paint. The vast majority were only in the paint but three were into the fiberglass. It was quite obvious: tapping on the glass in some spots produce a sickening squish sound instead of the clear "clack" sound at healthy spots. If you poked the bad spots with a knife they'd weep.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/A2PKAdiwf9aOquvdmM6mOss4oAaZoJXwZwdxxdGZwusc0x5yS2wMKjz-gKN2SP6Xbgw-8NmxAe57knGyBifY5v4wNpaQlKznyaWcfpGCDYkOLlJJfiF_emYYvb473_sASe4WHsn7Nsg)
The yard suggested I could probably fix them myself, so that's what I did. They were all on the ballast so I didn't have to worry about making any holes (actually none of them went all the way through the layup anyway). They probably gave me a procedure but I might have just found it on the internet.
Here's what I did.
1) First the yard prepped the area for me by sanding down to the gelcoat on the blister itself and also around it.
2) Remove the bad glass. I started with a drill to put holes in the glass and remove the "surface", which was pretty much just gelcoat.
3) Grind away all the bad glass. All. This meant that apparently small blisters, a couple of cm in diameter at the surface, were opened up to 7 or 8 cm. I used an angle grinder with one of those overlapping sandpaper wheels and ground until I had good glass, meaning no fibers sticking out anywhere and solid resin. I feathered the edges of the hole so that it was a very shallow slope from the gelcoat down to the bottom of the hole - I aimed for 12:1.
4) Cleaned the area with acetone and masked around it.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/JDZPND-rFve9HNMDmW62oLt387ecVEn5385iRddTWGW-XKhHOJa55F51OmYnR-WWJpbaEAYiLewhn3hdsrBMlHg3FDlX9-GFiEl5XZ37l0k1fEtCm-2pnTQDdLgkTJf8CofNg1JXKhA)
5) Paint some unthickened epoxy over the area.
6) When it has partially cured, fill with thickened epoxy.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/sh-cnrad6zWn6HMkfD8b3qNdC2gsiJ2JVk1noPMtGJxX8Go6E7jMLIKYQrdOjnaMgXkrXQ_My_quldIcIvrFajI2qP4KWxXnu5Q1nAv_1CdphtQrPBggCtB3REg8l46mUt8XTd52RXY)
Adam,
You sir (or I should say your boat) had real blisters. The size alone is a telling factor. The small pencil eraser size bumps often referred to as pox are what people typically refer to as blisters. Yours are much different.
Pox almost never weep when exposed. They often have water in them but the material that weeped from your sores was I'll bet sticky. The stickiness is uncured resin that evaded the catalytic hardener during the mix cycle. With out the hardener the resin portion remained as it started life and has remained that way until a bit of water infiltrated.
You did an exceptionally neat job by taping around the incision. I typically would just grind away making a duvet, fill and shape the area to match the surrounding area, and sand off what ever sits up proud of the surrounding hull.
All in all, fixing pox is the same procedure just on a smaller scale. Often a dremel tool is used to provide the cavity in a pox repair. Either way it is all boat yard dentistry.
Nice job!
Dale
Adam,
That didn't look like fun at all, but it was good that you caught those. I'll inspect my hull when I have it hauled out before having the bottom painted to see if there are any blisters that look suspect. Nice job and thank you for sharing!
Eric Davis
S/V Pony On A Boat
Happy to share and sorry for the weird inverted colors that I'm just noticing now (who ever heard of orange painter's tape?). Here are the original photos: https://goo.gl/photos/CWcLzdg5AMoehwq16
I'm glad I had the yard do a thorough sanding job; they're the ones who found these blisters and they inspected the entire hull to ensure there were no more. Not sure I would have discovered these on my own since I didn't really know what to look for at the time.
Quote from: Maruskathe material that weeped from your sores was I'll bet sticky
Yeah I didn't sample it :) In this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3EYMoSuhb0&t=3s) you can see what happens when I apply a bit of pretty to one of the blisters before I started working on it but after the yard had uncovered it.