This page shows the WaterBug bottom job history. Most of this documents work on the first bottom job in the summer of 2001. There have been two follow-up jobs since then. I took the pictures at various times between 24 April 2001 and late January 2005 (2005 pics coming soon). Back in April 2001 when I took the first shots I had already sanded off the ablative bottom paint plus the epoxy coat from hell. The boat had been overdue for a bottom job for some time but the summers of 2000 and 2001 had been hellishly hot in Texas and blisters came popping out by the hundreds in the summer of 2001. Grinding the bottom paint down exposed an epoxy barrier coat that looked like swiss cheese. It all had to come off and it wasn't fun. I had best luck stripping the ablative and epoxy by taking the top layers off with Interlux stripper then sandingthe remaining epoxy off with a DA air sander. But I wouldn't do it that way again. I'd either use a heavy duty electric grinder with about a 45grit or have the gellcoat all stripped professionally.
As I stripped behind the keel I found a crack where water had apparently been seeping under the gellcoat. This undoubtedly contributed greatly to the blistering. I tried a simple epoxy patch by grinding out the crack and filling it with epoxy, but the first time I put the boat in thelift and unloaded the keel off the trailer it cracked again. I didn't take any pictures of the crack, but you can see where I ended up sanding downand re-fiberglassing to repair it in the pictures below. There are about 6-8 layers of thin fiberglass mat on there in this picture. I ended up with about 12 layers in all. That fixed that problem.
The picture below with Mike and Scott was taken after that repair was done and the barrier coat had been applied.I ended up using West Systems epoxy and barrier coat powder. The main reason I used West System was the extensive documentation available through their publications. (See the West System Web site for info)
But just as I was getting ready to put the boat back onthe trailer that weekend I found more trouble. A blistered ridge appeared in the gellcoat all along the starboard side of the keel. I wasvery worried that this was indicating structural problems, but grindingthe area out the next weekend revealed what was apparently a manufacturing defect. There was one or two thin layers of matt under the gellcoat then a gap between the rest of the lay-up. When I lifted the boat with the keelring (previously I'd lifted with straps) it apparently flexed the bottom enough to make that gap blister up. Another few weekends of grinding ,fiberglassing and fairing ensued to fix that.
A week or so later, second week of September I finished the painting.
After a day of drying in the lift she was finally
back in the water.
In March of 2002 I took a *quick* swim one sunny day and was
quite dismayed to find a spot where the Trinidad SC was flaking
off thebarrier coat. Way bad! A later swim in a wetsuit revealed
extensive flaking. I called West Systems, but they had no similar
reports, and suggested I had made some error in surfaceprep. Bottom
line is the boat had to come back out of the water for another
round ofpaint stripping and bottom paint. I put that off to
do some sailing.
UPDATE:In November 2002 we put the
boat back on the trailer. I spent a weekend pulling
it and then power washing the Trinidad SC off. Here's a shot of the
paint and scum . Just imagine
red paint peeling off a very
old barn and you pretty much have it. It seems to have adhered well
above the waterline, but everything below the waterline washed off
quite easily. A half day job with a tiny 1300 PSI power washer and a
3M scrub pad.
The good news? NO BLISTERS!
Eventually I reached someone in KopCoat tech support. I think
he diagnosed the cause of the problem. The datasheet on the paint says
to wait a minimum of 2 hours between recoats. I'm pretty sure I didn't
do that. He said that if I'd waited longer before putting
it back in the water it probably would have been okay, and that's why the
paint above the waterline adhered well. He suggested that additional
protection and paint adherence could be obtained by putting a coat of
epoxy primer on first. The Petit product is "Petit Protect" which comes
as a two part epoxy. I was considering going with that but the closest
place I can find it is Dallas, and ordering over the net costs about 30 bucks
on top of the cost for "hazmat shipping". So I think I'll skip it. Maybe
next time.
After three weeks of waiting I finally got a chance to put the boat back in the lift.
Here's a picture of me and the boat right after some
prep work.
The temperature was only about 70F on painting day so I had to wait three hours between coats.
I thinned the Trinidad about four percent and put on two coats. Here she
hangs drying. I had 60 days to get her back in
the water after painting. I put it back in after about 15 days.
Around May 4th I put on the snorkel and mask and checked out the
bottom. It'd been back in the water about two months and everything
was looking fine.
If you have comments or suggestions, email me at jmadd@austin.rr.com
