Nothing wrong with re-gelcoating. Looks like you have pro's doing it. As far as weight goes, Try mixing up a quart of gel and weight it before kicking and then after it's kicked. Keep track of how much is sprayed on. A bit of what's sprayed on will be sanded off during the finishing process. I'm guessing about half of it. Or, check the weight of a hull before spraying and then after it's sprayed, sanded and finished. At least you'll know and can give the rest of us an idea about how much the finish weighs. You can also sand most of the old stuff off so any weight gain would be just in the nose area.


Looks nice!

thanks catman,

seems you are sailing a grey boat?

I am seriously considering a light grey as the color for the boat. how do you feel with yours? would you choose this color again?

It's some wierd Canadian off-white color. They do look greyish in that pic. I had trouble matching the color to do repairs and the guy that had it before me did a bottom job with a color that did'nt match so since that pic I re-gelcoated the hulls with a color that I can duplicate. They are still very similar to that color.

Around here and the way I use my boat white or an off-white is the only way to go. If I had something like an A-cat I would go with a cool paint job or darker colors.

Interesting comment, care to explain more since you went the regelcoat way??

Jonathan Grant
Mesa, Az
boatless..

If I was going to do an entire boat, I would paint it. The finish work is simply easier and you don't have to worry so much about matching. In the case of repairs or doing only part of a boat that is already gelcoated, I would gelcoat.

As far as the gelcoat goes, I gelcoated the bottom and up about 1/2 of the hull sides on a Nacra 20 (blue). The gelcoat I used covered MUCH better than the other gelcoats I have previously worked with and it took about 1/2 gallon to do both hulls. I'm guessing that a gallon may be around 12 to 15 lbs (5.4 to 6.8kg)...I used about 1/2 of that weight on the parts of the boat I sprayed. We did a white boat at about the same time and it took an entire gallon to cover a little less area.

I figure I sanded away about 1/3 of that gel (perhaps?) so we're talking about 2kg or so added to cover the bottoms and taper up the sides of both hulls.

Jake,

Care to PM me the details on the gelcoat you used?

it was blue. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I guess...I need to get the info off the side of the can tonight.

Dirk, this is a better Pic of the hulls. Mine is on the right. As you can see they are white.

What the.. hey? How are those Tornado mains working out with the non-tapered Mystere masts? They were designed for Marstrøms slender and tapered section with different spreader setups so I would think them to be a bit full?

They work out good. The T main is virtually the same size as the M5.5. To get the sail to fit the the 5.5 mast (30') we trim off about 10" off the top. On my boat the sail fits with no mods except the foot is shorter and that carries up the leech, so compared to the stock sail the T is shorter at mid girth about 14".

I have no trouble getting it flat. My mast may not be as flexible as a T's but it's flexible enough.

The sail I have there is the sail from Athens 04. It retired to Florida and is spending it's final days puttering around the Gulf and St. Joesph's sound. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

the mystree section is the old sailcraft t section

jake or others:

any brilliant idea how to combine redoing new gelcoat with achieving an anti-slip area on the decks?

Sugar Deck
Anti-slip additive to final gelcoat shot
non-skid tape

Anything else?

I haven't had the chance to use it yet, but I think you could add some non-skid additive to Duratec and spray that where ever you wanted a slip free surface. From what I have been told Duratec is like a clearcoat. It can be added to gelcoat to improve uv-resistance and flow out when spraying,(less sanding) or it can be sprayed by it's self over a existing gel surface to restore it providing the the surface is consistant in color, (won't cover repairs,etc). I believe it has to be kicked with MEK when used by itself just like gelcoat

Hopefully some else that has used duratec might comment.

I guess another way to go might be to tape off the areas you want non-skid and just spray gelcoat. It generally is quite an orange-peel surface and that can be exaggerated with spray technique. Nice thing about that is if you don't like it you can sand it off and try something else. You can add the additve to gelcoat and spray that on or even roll it on. You most likely should experiment with these or any suggestions before applying to the boat.

My thoughts here are dealing with gelcoat only based on what you said earlier about paint.

i thicken gel with cabosil and roll it with a 3 inch short nap roller.

I E-mailed the people at Duratec with some technical questions about their product and received a detailed answer with their recommendations the same day. I love their product...I used it recently on a powerboat I am refurbishing with great results. You can see the before and after pictures...the "after" picture was before I buffed it out...it now has a great "new boat gloss" look to it. The third picture gives a hint of the gloss althought the lighting is really bad.

Regards,
Bob

I know it's not reasonable and white would be the best,
but I am really attracted to black cats... (not the onese with 4 feets so)

The question is, if my 1980 repaired SC20 will get black gelcoat, will it survive?

We face up to 39°C here in summer with strong sun. The VX40 are autoclave and might not mind the heat, the foam of my old SC20 might think different about it.

Did anyone ever paint his old sandwich cat (I am sure it's not an issue with solid one layer glassfibre hulls) very dark and share his experience?

I had a kind of protype carbon A-cat earlier and I sailed it in carbon look for one season. The proplem occured with areas where there were some air in the foam layer and resin not fully hardened. It literally started cooking under the sun and before the Worlds in Italy at that time I found myself painting the platform white in fear of the warm south...

I don't expect those problems with the SC20, but maybe choosing black instead of a medium gray might be searching for trouble?

Attached VX40 pic.

thanks

Never mind the foam and worry about your butt and hands.

Sailed a very dark coloured cat once and its hulls got very hot in the sun, sure makes you careful of where you place your elbow in that drifter.

Wouter

Wouter is right... you will burn yourself on a black cat. Actually, anything but white will get super hot. A friend of mine has a yellow H16 with very light blue decks and it gets REALLY REALLY HOT compared to my plain vanilla white hulls.

You guys in the lower latitudes really have your own special problems <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Here is a photo from friday morning, shot while walking to work. Today I hope to be able to get on the water.