And we have...BLISTERS!

R

River Runner

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33941
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No real surprise there. The boat stayed in the water for over 13 years without being pulled. The hull looks like it got the mumps! So now it is time to repair. I have done the standard YouTube search to find repair methods. I see that there are different schools on the "best" way depending on who you talk to. I have never left my boat in the water this long so I don't have blister repair experience YET. I know that by the time I am done I will be the go to expert in my area...maybe.

So, thoughts on this. Should this project (47' thoroughly blistered bottom Gibson houseboat) be taken on by a novice? If not, what can I expect to pay to have this sort of thing repaired? I am a maintenance supervisor for a large factory in my daily life so getting in there and getting my hands dirty is not beyond me.

I look forward to hearing from the experts here.

Thank you!
 
Also, If I am to take this project on myself, what product is the best to use for the job?

Thanks!
 
Sounds like a horrible job to me. 2 springs ago I completely stripped my boat down by hand, the original gelcoat was shiny and never prepped right, so the paint was not sticking in lots of areas. It was 2500 or so just to soda blast, and I did not want to pay that. I can tell you after that I wished I did. So many hours of scraping, sanding, etc... and that was no blisters at all.
Can't even imagine how much work it would have been to add in blister repairs.
If you can afford it, don't do it yourself.
 
Was the boat in fresh water or salt? You can get water in the hull from both inner as well as outer surface so check for water inside the boat.

First thing is to grind open the blisters and flush with fresh water. You can do it a couple times with a hose. If soda blasting, now's the time.Then dry out the hull over the winter. I hope your boat won't be exposed to freezing temps. Dry desert is best.

Now you have time to decide how to procede.
 
Do you have the physical space to do all of this? Depending on what paint - if any - is on the bottom, you supposed to capture all of it and dispose of it correctly.
 
There is no paint left on the bottom anymore. I guess that is part of the problem. They figured one time must be enough for the life of the boat. LOL! I have the boat in drydock at my marina. Plenty of room to work around it if I have to do it on site. The water was fresh water. There are no leaks inside the boat to speak of. The worst one was from the bad deck drains on the bow but once that got pumped out it was dry and stayed dry. My boat IS exposed to freezing temps. I haven't seen a lot of boats in the dry desert. LOL! I am located in the Cincinnati area so I get lots of cold and from what everyone is saying this winter is going to be a bad one. I hope they are wrong although we are overdue.
 
So this boat has been in freezing temp winters for 13 years?
 
You have to open all of the blisters and let that hull dry out over the winter. Start that now if you can.
 
Tarp it off and find a way to heat under the boat for a couple of weeks? Salamander or propane heater? Need to dry them out.
Jim
 
quote:
Originally posted by 32carv

Tarp it off and find a way to heat under the boat for a couple of weeks? Salamander or propane heater? Need to dry them out.
Jim

Click to expand...

I have a salamander. I am mainly concerned with the oily exhaust residue of those. Are you meaning heat it up prior to opening up the blisters? I would be afraid of having bonding issues if I opened them up and ran the salamander under the boat. I also have the problem that I live about 45 minutes away from where the boat is stored so it's not like it is in my driveway and I can monitor it 24/7 so that makes the job that much harder. Heat it for how long? To what temperature?
 
How many blisters are we talking about? A few large and small blisters or thousands of small blisters?
 
Have you considered just leaving them alone? If the bottom is thoroughly blistered, it's a ton of work and $$$ to repair it, with pretty much no guarantee it won't happen again.

it's probably been at least ten years since I've linked to any of these editorials, but some interesting perspective on hull blisters. http://www.yachtsurvey.com/blisters.htm
 
I would say thousands of small blisters about the size of a dime or smaller probably closer to a 1/4". A few larger 50-100 in the range of 1" in diameter.
 
One option is to leave them alone as stated above. I had about 20 on the bottom of my first Carver and never dealt with them for the 12 years that I owned it. They never got worse but would shrink or disappear when the boat was out of the water. If want to repair them, you should mark them with chalk before they disappear.

The other option is to open them up, let them drain, and dry. They have to be filled and gel coated once dry. May not dry that well in winter, but longer you let them dry the more likely the repair will hold.
Jim
 
With that many blisters, I'd consider having the hull aggressively sandblasted, let sit all winter to dry. fair the hull, then several coats of barrier coat and then at least two coats of bottom paint. My yard recently did this to an older , blistered hull. The sandblasting opened up the blisters, shot away a lot of gel coat and then they basically faired the entire hull before barrier coating. Going to be expensive. I recently had many years of paint blasted away (no blisters), hull faired, 4 coats of barrier coat and 2 coats of bottom paint and it cost me about $5000.00. With that many blisters, you're talking about essentially removing all or most of the gelcoat.
 
Two of us peeled the gel coat off my 38 ft full keel sailboat, let it dry and faired her with a high tech fairing compound and then did at least 4 coats of barrier coat. The most expensive part of the job was the epoxy barrier coat and the fairing compound. The whole job including the "Peeler" was about $1000 a few years back.
 
Keep an eye on it. It could be they shrivel up with a little time on the hard.
 
Thanks guys!

Any idea of the trade name or technical name of the "peeler"? I am going to guess from the videos I have seen on Youtube that is some sort of a bladed planer. It looks like a very specialized tool. Are these available as a rental or only a purchase?
 
Made by American International Tool Ind. https://paintshaver.com/marineshaver-pro/ When I was done with mine I sold it to another bloke who needed to do the same to his boat. I still have their sander/vac. The nice thing about both tools is you can hook up a vac and literally eliminate the waste shavings from going everywhere.
 
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