I've gone back 3 years worth of posts but can't find the answer I'm looking for..... What causes oxidation of hulls? (don't say oxygen) I have used the 3M Heavy Oxidation and Wax product and hand rubbed my arm practically off, then waxed over that with NU Finish and it looks great........for about a week. Then the oxidation comes back and it really pisses me off. I'm thinking of A) buying a professional grinder/buffer to give the 3M product more oooph or B) taking it somewhere for professional buffing and polishing or C) having it repainted/regelcoated. It's a 1991 Nacra 5.5SL by the way. Help ME! Please?

Thanks
Greg

UV combined with oxygen breaks down the gel coat at the molecular level and once the original outer layer is gone, the gelcoat is very porous ... breaking down much easier.

"Vertglas" - buy it at West Marine (the only place I've found it online). You clean the hull, rub it down with something to remove any wax, make one quick pass with a rubbing compound (without wax) and polisher to remove the loose stuff, and then put on 6 quick coats of Vertglas with a foam/"shammy" brush. It goes on like water and dries to the touch very quickly. You could do an entire catamaran easily in an afternoon.

This stuff is a "co-polymer" (I know that's terribly generic but it's all I know) coating. It's not as hard as paint but it's much harder and durable than wax. It does wear away over time and they recommend washing the boat and applying another two coats once per year.

I refinished my 20 year old 24' monohull with this stuff last year and had several people ask me how I could afford a new boat. A year later, the sides still look terrific and the additional two coats made it shine more than I remember from last year. The topsides, however, where they get direct sun, seem to need more than the recommended two coats to get back to where they should be.

Thanks Jake,
I see why they put you on the cover. So I resign myself to a couple of coats of this co-polymer per year and people will ask me if I have a new boat!?!?!? That sounds perfect.
This also sounds like a very good reason to "invest" in one of the total boat covers (for $ 200 in Murrays) once this is completed so as to avoid some of the UV damage? Am I reading this right?

Hi Greg,

Jake is right. An invisible spectrum of ultraviolet light photo degrades just about everything on your boat; including the alum. mast, vinyl coating on the shrouds, for sure the tramp and stitching, all rubber fittings and shroud adjuster covers, etc. The gelcoat on your hulls is an especially UV sensitive plastic. I can't think of anything it doesn't degrade. It'll get your boat cover too. Oh yeah, it's what causes skin cancer and it's what we're supposed to avoid like the plague.

I haven't used Jake's product but I have used 303 Protectant for years on all my boats and outdoor gear. Lots of hardware stores carry it, as does West Marine. I know Wax is popular with sailors but it takes quite an effort to apply it, and as you know it wears off very fast, and is rapidly broken down by UV light waves, and worse yet it's hydrophilic. This means it attracts water so it'll add a small amount of weight to the boat and increase drag as you sail. 303 came out of the space program and is commercially available. It's the only thing that engineers know of that works long term, but nothing lasts forever. A note of caution, silicone, polymer sealants, and wax, all prevent the 303 from being absorbed into the gelcoat's pores and so will be ineffective. So all the stuff that doesn't work very well, will prevent the stuff that does work well, from working. It comes in a spray bottle. Spray it on the hulls and wipe the surplus off and that's it. I would put two thin coats on to begin with and do it again once or twice a season. The first couple sailings after application my hulls are super slipper. Now when I reapply it on the sides of the hull where my feet walk up and down when I'm out on the wire, I put it on with a rag that has very little 303 left in it. The first time I sailed after applying it the wind was blowing pretty good and a wave hit me not far from the beach. I went flying off the hull and around behind the stern and watched my shiney boat slowly flip.

I coat everything on my boat including the mast, block and tackle, etc. but exclude the tramp. Mine is new and slippery enough already and I use a storage cover. I also use it on my life jacket, trap harness, cat trax wheels, canoe paddles, storage bags, wet suits, dry suits, and anything neoprene just loves the stuff. Just about anything that's out in the sun a lot. It restores the original color to some extent.

I recently bought five older boats. One is a 1975, the others are 1980s and an early 1990 model. None had ever been covered, not even during winter, and all looked like they were surplus from World War II. Today with new rigging, lines, and sails, and gleaming hulls, all look like they're contemporary boats. If you have an older boat that has suffered a lot of oxidation to the hulls and not been regularly maintained, you'll probably want to use an oxidation remover first. This is because the oxidized gelcoat builds up on the surface as kind of an uneven mat and it won't produce as smooth and glossy a finish as it would, had it been removed first. West marine sells something called "Fiberglass Color Restorer for $10.00 per pint. A pint should do a whole boat. Although two of my boats required a quart apiece. What ever you choose to do, quite waxing. Good luck.

Daniel

I can say that most oxidation is caused by SMOG- Ozone is the primary component and it oxidizes paint, rubber and most things around- including lungs- that is why the American Lung Association says we need better standards to reduce asma and other problems associated with smog. I work in air quality

John R.

Quite an approptiate time to bring up this subject because up in New York, we're planning to haul the boats off the beach and tuck them away for the winter.

I've always just buffed them and waxed them, but they do look very oxidized so I'll try these products. Thanks for sharing.

W

I've gone the labor intensive route on a couple of older boats rencently:

1) Fill all the scratches with either bogged matching gel coat (visible areas) or Formula 27 (bottoms), sand smooth with 100 grit.
2) Wet sand with progressive grits - 320 (patches), 400 (everything), 600, 800, 1000.
3) 3M Heavy Duty Rubbing Compound and a machine buffer (get a real one, not the $25 toy they sell at WalMart. DeWalt 849.)
4) 3M Finesse-It II w/ machine buffer w/foam pad
5) 3M Marine Wax

I did a 17 year old Hobie 17 and a 20 year old Hobie 14 in a day or so each. They look like they were just popped out of the molds. Shiny

VERTGLAS
So if the product is so good why doesn't Rick and Mary put it in their store. I would much rather send my hard earned USD to Catamaran Sailor than west marine.... and I bet I'm not the only one

Kevin

one of these days one of you will try Vertglas and confirm what I'm telling you! It's not easy to source and would be a good product for catsailor.

OH BTW - do NOT try to use a rubbing compound on top of vertglas because it burns and turns black almost immediately. It removes easily with acetone however. I'll take a picture of my Hunter tomorrow and show the shine!

I bought a Vertiglas kit. From the MarineStore.com
I first looked through the Catsailer On-line Store but didn't see it. Googled it and the Marinestore popped right up and it was cheaper.

Promise I'll take before and after pictures and post them.

I was planning on painting my hulls this winter since it looks like no has ever waxed them. I was planning on sanding off the gel coat and applying a 2 part epoxy paint. It seems that to sand and buff and sand and buff, etc is an awful lot of work that you will have to do every year.

Am I correct in that the epoxy paint will hold the shine much longer and that it will also stand up to beach rash much better? Anyone have any expereince with this?

You don't have to do the "sand and buff" routine every year. After a few years, there'd be no gel coat left!

I did "sand and buff" my H-16 last year - a '98 - then took it to Strictly Sail Chicago and put it on display with a brand-new Tiger. People thought the 16 was newer than the Tiger. It still looks that way today, although it did pick up a few scratches over the summer (9 2-day regattas and 7,250 miles on the trailer )

Paint no matter what kind isn't going to stand up to the beach. I painted a Hobie 18 I used to have with Imron and before I did I taped off about a four inch wide strip tapered down at the front and left that gelcoat. The Gelcoat is much easier to repair and work with. If your going to sand anyway you might as well try sanding and polishing first.

Another way to do this would be to sand to about 280 and have the boat clearcoated with Imron or Awlgrip. This works really good on colored hulls. Nice thing is if get it scratched the old color dosen't show through.

Last summer we bought an older J22 for racing and worked on it over the winter. We decided to refinish the entire hull and refair it. But, we made a mistake in having the boat repainted instead of working with the Gelcoat that was there. The paint does chip and cannot be "brought back to life". I'm sorry we did it. I've seen catamarans painted and they look good from far, but the finish is less than acceptable. I've always done better with the rubbing and buffing.

I'm going to try that new procuct on the 2 Hobie Cats in my life. I certainly would never paint them.

Wyatt

Hey Bullswan,

You're heading in the right direction. I don't think Vertglas is a panacea, but you're light years ahead of the guys who believe in painting to restore faded hulls. Vertglas claims that it makes your gelcoat completely impervious to UV degredation. That's not accurate. It doesn't. But it should, if correctly applied, do an acceptable job of protecting your hulls for the bulk of the sailing season. Ant that's really all that matters.

Wyatt, I'm with you. Once you do something that doesn't work very well, why keep on doing it? Hobienick, Catman, and all you guys who believe paint is the answer, I don't want to dissuade you from painting if your heart is set in that direction. But all you're doing is covering up old oxidized damage and doing nothing to prevent it from happening to your new paint job. Some paints are better than others, that's true, and will resist breakdown by the sun better than others. But they all deteriorate after a relatively short period of time.

If your hulls are damaged by deep scratches or cracks then you've got a repair job to do on the gelcoat. Other than these specific areas I would never sand the gelcoat. It's there for a purpose.

Calcheck I hate to disagree with you, but if we could prevent UV damage; the amount of damage from ozone wouldn't be enough to prompt anybody to correct it. Guys think about it for a minute. Why is it that every car ever owned, always faded if parked outside for a period of time. In fact UV penetrates inside the car and the dash, seats, door panel, etc. all fad too. My living room carpet is faded in the area that the sun reaches. So what is it that causes this fading? It isn't ozone. It's UV light. It causes oxidation on a molecular level.

If you want to protect your hulls, tramp, lines, etc. then the boat must be covered when not in use. Period!!!! If you want your boat protected when you're out on the water, an area of intense UV light, then you have to cover everthing with a protectorant. It sounds like most of you have boats that are pretty degraded, so you would be well advised to pony up seventy bucks for the Vertglass restoration kit. If your boat isn't too badly oxidized, you should be able to get buy with Vertglas Sealer for twenty seven to fifty bucks. I'd rather spend ten bucks for a little bottle of 303 Protectant and wipe the hulls down every couple of months. I suppose it takes me the better part of ten minutes. The friction caused by the water moving over the hulls, will over time, remove the surface coating of both 303 Protectant and Vertglass. The thirty or forty minutes a year I spend doing maintenance, saves me from the hours and hours of hard grunt work guys have to do when their boat has bad hull damage.

Prindle 16, it takes a fair amount of sales to justify stocking a product. Looking at all the cats I run into it, seems to me there isn't much of a market to justify stocking this stuff. We still have lots of guys who believe waxing is doing something good for their boat. Overall looks to me like most guys don't do anything to take care of their boats.

In a way this thread is a bit of an irony for me because I'm more interested in taking care of the hulls from the water line down. I wouldn't ever set my hulls on anything but my little foam rests.

Daniel

You're getting a DNF if I have to pull out the dictionary again.

Damn, I was going to say there appears to be a plethora of ideas on how to solve the dilemma.. but I guess I won't.
Don't want a DNF. I also can't say I'm autodidactic either.
Thanks
Greg

Greg,

Anybody who knows what an autdidact is must be one

Daniel

Jake,





Daniel

Not even automotive painters use a buffer anymore the oil base compounds are toxic. The modern method is to wet sand with 1200 paper and 2000 grit(yes2000grit with lots of water) this gives you great control without removing too much gellcoat. After sanding wipe on a polimer sealor and cover your boat.