Our 320 is still on a trailer

[tawcat]

Pulled it out in December to get some damaged gel coat repaired. Wouldn't ya know it. Sea Ray or Spectrum discontinued the shade of blue we have on our hull. The shop finally special ordered some and now everytime they start to buff and blend little white specs appear.

Dealer told me that SR had trouble with this the first year, 2005, they offered that particular blue. So here our boat sits, no telling how long its gonna take them to get it right.

Second issue; I looked under the boat today while there and found alot of bare hull showing. The boat is well 4 years old for sure, but its probably been in the water since 2004. Should we spring for new bottom paint? I'm thinking better to get all this done while she's out of water.

Your thoughs on both issues is greatly appreciated.

 

[Henry Boyd]

On the bottom paint you are due. I don't know what the weather is for you this time of year, here it is definitely too cold to paint anything. Betting you are somewhere in between, just make sure that the temperatures have been warm enough, long enough, so that the hull and air temp will be above the minimum application temperature. This means not only while the paint is going on, but while it is curing as well.

Henry

 

[Escapade]

Tawcat- The white spots in the gel coat patch. Could it be perosity in the patch itself. I have seen where the patch material when mixed introduces tiny air voids. When sanding this out they open up and fill with the white dust. Bearly noticeable on a white hull.

Might have to grinde them out and do over. Mention to add sryrene to the gel coat to reduce the viscosity and fill void just a bit over. then add wax paper over the wet gel. best if you can tape a peice of plexiglass over the wax paper to set every thing flat as can be.
Less work sanding out.

Good luck!

 

[Bridog]

I need to bottom paint every year. Consider yourself fortunate.

 

[tawcat]

Guys, thanks so much. I copied and pasted and sent this on to the maintenance guy. You know we are cringing at the thought of having to strip and repaint!!!

 

[Henry Boyd]

You shouldn't have to strip and re-paint. All you need to do is sand down the bare spots and re-apply the bottom paint. It does accumulate over time and then you have to do a big job. I had to that last year. It took about 8 hours of sanding and then painting. Since this will be your first re-coat it should not be a big task to get it done.

Henry

 

[comsnark]

Yeah. . .if you only have one coat on the boat, I would consider "scuffing" per the instructions and reapplying.

You might want to consider ablative paint. . . that stuff supposedly sloughs off over time, which will minimize paint buildup over the years.

BTW: You say the boat is on a trailer? Not on blocks? Do you trailer? How often are you out of the water? That really affects bottom paint decisions.

 

[tawcat]

She is not on blocks yet, but will be for bottom paint. The "cringing" I was referring to is the hull paint. Here is what our service manager told us:

the problem with the original gel on the boat not the patch is that it is thin from the factory so when you sand the newley sprayed gel you have sand out past the repair area to blend in and we have already gone out alot further then the original repair area trying to get to a thicker area, the original gel becomes translucent and you get the white fiberglass underneath so we would have to get down to an area where the gel wont sand through or to a sharp edge like the transom corne, that is the problem with the blue during the time thess boats were built.

They are contacting SR to see if they will cover the work (or at least some of it) under warranty.