Pressure Washing

[CapnHand]

I've never used a pressure washer on my boat, hull or topsides. I use non abrasive cleaners and fairly soft brushes. I don't like the thought of using high pressure water on the gel coat or pushing water in under fittings on the deck.

I'm averse to using a pressure washer to clean the bottom. My thinking is that I've applied Interlux to avoid osmotic blisters due to a few psi of water pressure, hitting the hull with several hundred psi of water pressure can't be good.

Has anyone seen / heard of water intrusion problems, gel coat damage or osmotic blisters from pressure washing or am I just being paranoid?

[camaraderie]

Paranoid if you are talking about the hull. Moderate pressure washing is perfectly fine. On deck it can loosen bedding compound and cause intrusion.

[k1vsk]

Confined to the hull and deck non-skid, low pressure pressure washing works great at removing dirt from the non-skid resesses and is pretty commonly used on both with no problem

[Rockter]

Superb at cleaning teak, as long as you set the nozzle to "fan" pattern, and stand back a fair bit, say 9".

The green soup muck floods off the old ship.

It is far easier than scrubbing, and faster.

Just be careful with it.