Should I expoxy a 3 year old boat

[paul]

My current boat is a 3 year old Moody 36 which I plan to keep for a number of years. I'm thinking of epoxying the boat using gelshield 200 after letting it dry ashore for about 3 months (Jan - March). The boat has been stored ashore for about 2 months each Winter from new. Is this likely to be sufficient to dry the hull or should I get the moisture content checked beforehand? If so what would be an acceptable moisture reading in order to apply the expoxy? Thanks

 

[longjohnsilver]

If you're going to kep the boat for quite some time, why not invest in your own moisture meter. The Tramex Skipper is excellent and costs about £250. You can then see how effective your treatment is and how dry the hull is at the moment.

 

[castaway]

I would check with Mr Moody first as I would have thought that a boat of this age would not need to be Epoxied as it would use the latest type of resins. Assuming that you did go ahead with yr plan .. be careful as the last thing you want to do is to trap moisture behind the Epoxy..On a fairly valuable boat I would get some independent advice. Possibly phone a few surveyors and check with them their charges for monitoring the moisture levels.
I plan to employ a surveyor to do just this when I finally get around to it on my boat which does have a degree of osmosis. I understand that some yards are not as scupulous as they might be, when it comes to ensuring that all is as dry as it should .. Hence the importance of an independent check

 

[chrisc]

Why should you need to epoxy a 3 year old boat?
assuming the boat was well layed up ,and I think we should
assume that in this case, the hull should have an almost
indefinitive life -much in excess of 25 years judging by all the
thirty year old boats I see ,very few of them with blisters.
biggest problem will soon be what to do with all these old
boats cluttering the yards.

 

[Guest]

I can't comment on whether you should or should not epoxy your particular boat. But, Blake's paints certainly give guidelines as to what level of moisture in a hull is acceptable when it is about to be epoxied for preventative purposes. I imagine International have similar figures so I'd contact them!

Dave