Fading Blue gel coat - advice needed

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coombm

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Have just returned from a (suprisingly glorious) yet arduous week-end cleaning the boat at Lymington. The boat has "brushed up" well apart from the blue "stripe" on the hull which has faded and has a sort of white cloudy appearance despite applying various obnoxious chemicals, polishes and alot of elbow grease. Any advice? Mike
 
if it is just a stripe, you can paint it with spray cans of automobile paint from halfords. We did this with our old bayliner and it really worked well. One undercoat spray and two top coats.
 
MBM did an excellent article a few years ago showing how to clean coloured boats using 3M products. They used Piers Du Pre's old boat as an example.

The results were brilliant

I do not have the article any more but someone on here may still have it.

May
xx
 
I am assuming the blue is just below the gunwhale strip and just above the waterline, and it is the colour of the gelcoat, not just an added strip.
It wont be a big job for someone with G3 cutting compound and machine polisher, if you don't feel confident, get a pro to do it. He should be able to cut back the blue section on that size of boat in a couple of hours.
Then you put on the wax by hand. Don't let it get back to that level again, keep that wax on.

Good luck, they are a nice boat (Monteray).
 
If its a stuck on adhesive decal get it replaced with a new one.

If its painted on you can initially cut it a bit to remove the chalking but it will re chalk faster and eventually you will have to have it re sprayed.

If it is gelcoat you can cut and polish it initially but it will soon start to chalk after a month or so and eventually the only answer is to have the stripe re sprayed.

My blue hull 2001 will cut back nicely to a reasonable shine but after a couple of months its starts to chalk and look streaky, eventually I shall have to have it spray painted.
 
IMHO, there is no product that will keep the blue stripe shiny for any length of time. The only think you can do is paint it. That sounds a bit tacky but actually some of the best boat builders paint their hulls and done properly, the finish can be even better than gelcoat. Whilst Haydn's comments may appear unhelpful, he's actually right. All coloured hulls eventually fade or go chalky especially if they're exposed to sunlight so an all white hull is always better in this regard
 
I would look at painting as a last resort. You WILL be able to bring your gelcoat back to an as new shine. How can I be so confident? Well my Bayliner is over 20 years old and it went from this:

[image]
before.jpg
[/image]

To this:

after.jpg


Using 3M products and an electric polisher. You won't be able to do this by hand.

You can read how the above was achieved in the feature "Buff and Shine" from the July 07 issue of MBM, available from our copyshop.
 
If this clouding is mainly on the stern quarters it is quite common and most boat makes suffer the same. The manufacturers seem to have fixed this now on more recent boats last three years or so. Its to do with the gel cote pigment and the effect the sun has on it. Best solution is to cut back with wet and dry maybe 800 then 1200 then 1600 finaly compound 3M fast cut and finaly 3M finess-it. Be carefull as the gell is not usualy very thick. But once at this stage you need to protact from the elements when boat not in use. A boat berthed near me has had some small clip on covers made by the local sail maker from blue Sunbrella which just pop on and off. Just keeps the sun off the gell stern quarters when boat not in use.

Hope this helps it is very common.
 
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