Hull Colour

[colingray3]

I am planning to buy a bigger boat about this time next year and very much like the look of blue hulled boats - a Beneteau 311 is a possibility. However I have a niggling doubt about buying a boat with a coloured hull - there must be a very good reason why the vast majority of GRP boats out there are white. Does anyone with a coloured hull or experience with coloured hulls have any views?

 

[homa]

Dark hulls absorbe the heat
Clould be a problem in a warmer climate
Otherwise I suspect a colour other than white may cost more?

Personally I like my dark blue hull. It's a pretty awful paint job, but looks great at more than 10 foot away!

On a completely different note, I think dark colours are much easier to see at sea amongst the white horses, and I cross the N. Sea every (working) day.

 

[BlueChip]

A blue hull looks very good but shows every mark. The slightest fender scuff looks awfull and although they polish out ok you must be prepared to spend far more time cleaning the hull than you might with a white hull.
I haven't found the boat gets significantly warmer than with a white hull.

 

[savageseadog]

Having treated and seen a number of boats with osmosis, coloured resins seem more prone.

 

[Swagman]

We've also had last two yachts in dark blue and its true, the surface cannot reflect heat as well as white.
I think on older poly or vinylester builds the extra heat absorbed by a dark hull used to result in surface shrinkage - often leading to the outer levels of cloth becoming more visible.
But as more are today using epoxy resins the shinkage issue reduced.
I also agree blue is possibly best looking boat colour - but it is a bugger to have to continually touch up those little scratches which miraculously appear..........
Cheers
JOHN

 

[MIKE_MCKIE]

Believe that dark colored boats tend to look smaller than white, a natural reaction, but I personally think they look "nicer" all round.

 

[boatmike]

An interesting and understandable observation.
For a gel coat to have maximum possible protection it should ideally contain no additives, therefore the best situation is to have clear unpigmented resin below the waterline. This also has the advantage of making the laminate fairly transparent so that imperfections in the layup can be seen (perhaps a reason why builders are reluctant to do it?) Of course it is easier to make the hull all one colour so if buyers are not smart enough to demand it it is rarely done on production boats.
apart from this the more pigment that is added makes the resin less impervious to water penetration and with reds and blues it is usually necessary to add even more pigment to make the gel coat above the waterline more resistent to colour fading in UV light. Therefore no pigment =best, white pigment= less good, blue, red etc, even worse.
Even then I have never seen a 10 year old blue boat that didn't fade....
Stick to white!!!

 

[tcm]

agree with others, blue hulls look very lovely and for near-new secondhand they are more sought-after - but they present more maintenance problems.

It is especially a problem if any part of the hull faces upwards -usually at the stern frexample. Under these circumstancs then either because they absorb more heat or for other reasons, a coloured gelcoat can "cloud" and ook manky. Mine did and i see many others with tis too, after bout 4 seasons in the med, tho probly a lot longer in the uk.

You can see more dirt and dried salt ona blue hull too, so athouh it looks great when new, it looks a it manky when not bangu to the mark Like black cars i suppose.

Yes, darker colours do get noticeably hotter than light ones. My roughish but representative experiments in this regard have shown a dark-painted surface to be at least 15 degrees hotter to the touch in med sun, possibly more, and hence dark-painted things get more problems related to repeated heating and cooling - namely the paint lifts sooner.

Easily the easiest boat to maintain has minimal teak on deck and is white/off-white in colour.

 

[Lakesailor]

Just an opinion, but they do have a classy look. They need to be a bigger boat.
Someone posted on here recently about buying a blue-hulled boat and was dismayed to find that "out of the box" it was a paint job on a white hull.

This looks nice though

 

[Guest]

Mine has dark blue topsides but below the waterline the resin is clear, presumably to protect against osmosis. Presumably that's a more protective approach for example than having white throughout (do white boats tend to use clear resin or white below the waterline?)

She's 10 yrs old now, and there's no signs of fading of the blue. Or rather, there was, but a relatively superficial polish last year brought back the original dark blue back beautifully and she's looking great - I don't see any likely need to paint her for many years yet.

I wouldn't say that the white topsides are easier to maintain - blue may show up scratches, but white shows up stains and scuffs more clearly, and with time white starts to turn "eggshell". That can be countered to some extent with polish, but I reckon I spend more time on the white topsides than the blue hull.

The guy in the boatyard put on his sunglasses when she was wheeled out this spring! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[yogi]

After two dark blue hulls all I can say is it will be oxydized and in need of a paint job within seven years. After that time period it can be buffed up but will not last the season. If anyone has a way around this problem I'm willing to listen.

 

[Guest]

What does the oxydising look like?

 

[Sinbad2222]

Beware of a blue hull on a Beneteau!
Beneteaus come in six different shades of blue and once you have bought your boat agents like Ancasta will not have the slightest interest in supplying you with the correct colour gelcoat when you need some.

 

[Lakesailor]

Looks like This

 

[Guest]

Hmmm, haven't experienced anything like that yet, fingers crossed.

 

[cookjwm]

Interesting subject , observations:
locally kept Beneteau with blue hull about 5/6 yrs old -bad fading in places .swinging mooring
recently looked at several Maxi's up to 8 years old -little fading , but you could see the touch up paint close up. I think all these on pontoons. Overall I thought they were doing well.
I understand that all oysters are now built without colour pigment and painted......

Is it about quality of build?

 

[yogi]

Some of the better or at least the most expensive boatbuilders have been painting and clear coating their products. If you are lucky enough to have one of these congraulations, your boat won't fade.
Going through two actually it was three but one was awlgrip which brought on problems of another kind. I have tried every type of wax and coatings I could find. the longest lasting was about a month before oxydation began. Even went so far as a number of years ago a dealer installed coating that was highly advertised before clear coating came into use. The best so far was Poly Glow which lasted the season but now needs to be redone. The other problem with dark blue is that the scratches are a powder blue colour and are very visable. I have recently read about a new British product that a boat builder over there was using on new boats. the name escapes me does anyone know what it is.

 

[Guest]

[ QUOTE ]
I have tried every type of wax and coatings I could find. the longest lasting was about a month before oxydation began.

[/ QUOTE ]
Did you try using a mild abrasive polisher + mechanical polisher?

 

[yogi]

Certainly this is what you do before applying wax, even going so far as washing the boat. It does get pretty boring when you have to it twice a year and I do get older and the boat doesn't get smaller.
The problem is when the boat is new it comes out of the mold with a layer of wax and the pigment is surrounded with a layer of clear polyester resin. The wax soon disappears and the clear polyester layer wears off both naturally and by using an abrasive. This leaves the pigment exposed to air and very quickly oxidised unless it is coated with something, preferably something long lasting. This I have so far been unable to find short of a $8000 outlay for painting the boat.
However if you have any other good ideas please let me know.

 

[Guest]

Haven't tried polishing twice a year, I'm afraid. Mine was looking distinctly tired last year, but hadn't been polished for 4 years /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif So I polished it up 6 months ago, and so far it still looks good. I'm anticipating a minor polish in the Spring. Fingers crossed that that's all that's needed. The main task now is to bring the (white) topsides up to similar standard, plus filling remaining minor scratches in the blue.

I think that afer 10 years any gelcoat will need some attention.