Osmosis treatments

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Windfall

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Are they worth it?

Just rec'd a quote to treat my She 31b. All in comes to just a little under £4.5k and they can fit us in next winter. My concern (apart from the price!) the materials have no guarantee but the work is guaranteed for 3 yrs. Oh yes, so if it all falls off in 2 yrs time is this material or application error?

Just not happy paying so much for something I may be doing all over again in a few years time & just why are the manufacturers so unwilling to stand behind their product?

Any comments?


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G'day Sharon,

Osmosis (if that's what it is) has never caused a boat to sink, having said that, the question of if it should be fixed or not depends on what you plan to do with the boat.

If you plan to keep for a long time, perhaps you should get some more quotes, some do provide a proper warranty.

You could sell it as is and drop a bit on the price. or have it treated a couple of years before you plan to sell her.

Also consider doing the job yourself, as 60% of the cost is labour, sure there will be some steps that you might get someone in to do, but the savings will still be considerable.

Oh, and the reason some only provide a 3 year warranty is because they are not confident that all the moisture and voids have been removed in the initial treatment, but are sure that the extra coating they have applied will hold any more water for 3 years.

When getting quotes, ask them to detail their methodology, look for complete removal of all gelcoat and at least 1 mm of existing fibreglass, and at least one lay-up of new fibreglass in the rebuild. Also ask them to identify the type/s of resin they will be applying.

I hope this helps. I did my own and other boats some years ago, I also have a few links related to osmosis if you would like to read up on the subject.

Avagoodweekend.
Old Salt Oz /forums/images/icons/cool.gif



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Our boat was epoxied in 1989 when the gelcoat started coming off of its own accord. Lots of wicking and lumps of grp to be ground out and replaced as water had got in over a long period of time. Not a pretty sight. Would not have been as expensive if it had been noticed 5-10 years earlier and remedied. I've heard it said that there is no such thing as Osmosis as a disease, only bad lay-up, that was certainly the cause in my case. I doubt many cases are as extreme as ours was.

The good news is that this year we took her antifouling back to the epoxy and I found a few chipped areas on the bottom of the keel, three tiny blisters on the deadwood and one small area that sounds a bit hollow. In other words, apparently nothing to worry about after 14 years. The insurers survey last year found her a bit on the damp side, but that is normal for an old boat.
Product used was Intershield, professionally applied after 9 months drying out.

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Sorry Mike, but I don't have my own URL, however if it's the sites that provide information on Osmosis you were looking for, here is a little light reading for you and perhaps a few you might add to your favourites.

http://www.yachtsurvey.com/

http://www.practical-sailor.com/newspics/charts/855pox.pdf

http://www.hyab-osmocure.com/

http://www.yachtsurvey.com/StressCracking.htm

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.international-marine.com/default_main.htm>http://www.international-marine.com/default_main.htm</A>

Andavagoodweekend. Old Salt Oz /forums/images/icons/cool.gif




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Hi Brian

Thanks for your words of wisdom. We've revisited the quote, it only only allows 6 weeks for drying...any shed time beyond that is charged at £40 per week. As we've already been advised that it may takes several months to dry our quote at £4.5k looks optimistic.

I've seen the yacht-surveys site and must say he presents quite a compelling argument. We've decided that next winter we'll strip off all the paint and a previous poor epxoy coat give the hull a good fresh water wash down and then see what we are looking at. My other half is so in-love with this boat that he says he'll never sell, but I've a feeling we may sort the bottom some time in the future when we're looking at the market.

Av a good one yerself!
Sharon

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Had Aeolus done early 2002, took them eight weeks to dry out the hull after stripping. They used a combination of washing down and heaters then the Blakes system to resurface the hull. At £5k for a 32' boat did we get a good deal? I don't know. Was it worth doing? Yes. From a personal point of view, we want the boat to be as good as we can make it, and as we intend to keep her for reasonable number of years we felt we would be getting the value back out of the "investment". It certainly made the anti-fouling this year easy.

Jeff.

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