Bottom Paint - Hide Defects?

[gstraub]

Hello All,

I might be paranoid (well I know I am!), but wanted to see if there were any opinions on this. I''ve got an offer on a boat that a yard took in trade. It has been on the hard for a while. The yard painted the bottom. I find that a bit odd as doesn''t bottom paint usually have an "out of the water" shelf life of about 30 days or so. I know some of the ablatives are not this way. If so, does this raise any red flags with anyone else?

Gerhard

[Jeff_H]

Buying any boat that has been out of the water for a while is a bit of buying a pig in a poke, since blisters will often shrink back after the boat has been dry for a while and quickly reappear when the boat is wet again. The yard may have painted the bottom with an ablative in an effort to ''freshen'' the appearance of the boat. Or it may have painted the bottom to hide some quickly repaired blisters. Its hard to say.

Jeff