Chips out of underside of boat - how serious?

[djpmilfordnh]

Looking at a boat and it's got between dime sized and quarter sized chips - they don't appear too deep. What shows is a fiberglass layer, where you can see the fibers, and it has a very rough finish. They don't appear to be gouges, but rather chips. It looks like a very thin layer of the shiny finish is missing. I think I noted maybe 5-6 of these small spots. Other than that, everything appeared to be in pretty good shape. I didn't see any lines that would indicate cracks. I've seen those on other boats - they appear as very thin black jagged lines. I did notice about mid length, some rounded bumps, which wer all the same diameter. Appears to be where a rivet, might be - but I'm not even sure rivets are used - but I would have no other explaination. I did put finger pressure on them, to see if it was some sort of "bubbling" - but there were very solid. Again, they were all the same size and appeared to be equidistant from one another. They ran up and down, not the length of the boat, but up the side, all in the same line.

Thanks

 

[undone]

Those bumps you felt were probably blisters, at least from how you described them, they're not a good thing. The dime size chips are probably blisters that have been broken open.

Blisters are a big negative on a hull, they aren't terminal, but they're very costly to fix correctly.

Some pics would help.

 

[southkogs]

Welcome aboard:

Where on the hull were these? It sound to me like a dock hit maybe, but I'm not sure. Got any pictures?

 

[djpmilfordnh]

They are on the lower third of the boat. I'd approximate 12" - 24" up from the "v". They wouldn't be from the dock.

I found a few posting about Glastron's needing some special treatment if they're going to be kept in the water more than a week or so. Does anyone know if this is true? This is a 2001 model. If it is blistering, I wonder if it ties to the few posts that mention Glastron's needing special treatment.

Here's a portion of the post I found on a Glastron forum:
"Says if your gonna keep in water for more than 2 WEEEKS you need to put a barrier coating on hull, or blisters may form, WHICH ARE NOT COVERED BY WARRANTY! Moral of the story, read your manual cover to cover before putting in. "

So if this is blistering from setting in water, is it too late to do this barrier coat? What is a barrier coat, as long as we're on the subject?

Thanks

 

[Barramundi NQ]

Pics please......... also a barrier coat for boats that sit in water for weeks or months is usually an anti-fouling paint. It's usually black or blue and it only painted on the hull at the water line and below. Blisters are bad news for fiberglass boats. If you grind one out it usually smells like cat wizz. Wear eye protection as it high in acid

 

[MAC ATTACK]

If the chips are showing fiberglass, clean them with denatured alcohol or something strong and the fill with marine tex epoxy. I would seriously consider this type of defect in the price. I bought a used Sea Chaser and knew it had gouges on the bottom from running the flats. Price was right and marine tex filled the gouges. You never want exposed fiberglass soaking up water

 

[undone]

It is possible for hulls to blister from being in the water for long periods of time, although there are materials that can be used in production to help prevent it.

At this point it may be a bit late for a barrier coat. The problem is the blisters are created by water being absorbed into the laminate and breaking down some of the compounds in it. At this point water has been absorbed down to a certain depth in the entire laminate below the waterline, even though you only see a few blisters now, more will show up over time. So while the visible blisters can be repaired and then a barrier coat applied, the laminate will still have water in it and the now unseen blisters may continue to grow and show up at some time in the future, could be a few months or a few years, or possibly never, this is the unknown part.

A proper blister repair requires the gel coat to be removed and the laminate taken down to a level where there is no damaged (blistered) laminate, then rebuild the surface back up to where it should be and repaint. This is a time consuming and costly job.

Sometimes people gamble a bit, if the boat is kept on a trailer from now on the blisters œmay not get worse, or if they do it will be at a very slow rate, so they may go for a partial repair and then hope it doesn't get worse. The other part is blisters are mostly a cosmetic issue, so while ugly they don't really cause much of a structural problem unless it becomes a very severe case, which isn't common.

A boat with a blistered hull would be worth much less than one without blisters.

PS. Barrier coats are not anti fouling paints, they are two very different things. although they can be used together.