Blisters on my hull! (see pic)

[marcusn]

Yikes!
Getting my boat ready yesterday, I noticed a small area of blisters near the waterline. They don't appear too severe, but thought sharing with the experts here might yield another opinion.

My finger indicates scale. The general area affected is roughly a square foot.

[Maine Sail]

Looks like shrink wrap gone bad.. Often times the shrink wrappers will let the gun sit in one place too long. The gel coat at the waterline has higher moisture content. The heat causes the moisture to expand rapidly and to fast to breathe out of the gel coat naturally.

This intense quick heat pops these little blisters off. If you never hit them with heat they likely never would have done anything or even been noticed. If you want to confirm this hit an area near this with an electric heat gun (do not get it to hot or you could burn the gelcoat). You will notice these things form and pop..

[US27inKS]

Originally Posted by marcusn

Yikes!
Getting my boat ready yesterday, I noticed a small area of blisters near the waterline. They don't appear too severe, but thought sharing with the experts here might yield another opinion.

My finger indicates scale. The general area affected is roughly a square foot.

Like the old saying goes........ Dammit.

[negrini]

Marcusn, these are very lite blisters (size of a coin) and looks superficial to the gelcoat, not affecting inner layers. Probably a bad gel application/treatment. A basic Google search will indicate how to fix this and in general state you shouldn't be concerned.

[sailingfool]

Originally Posted by negrini

Marcusn, these are very lite blisters (size of a coin) and looks superficial to the gelcoat, not affecting inner layers. Probably a bad gel application/treatment. A basic Google search will indicate how to fix this and in general state you shouldn't be concerned.

MaineSail's explanation rings truer, especially of this is the only area. Blisters above the waterline are not common. I'd be concerned as when he repairs this area it is likely to end up a different shade than the rest of the topsides...looking like whaat it is...a patch. Ugh.

[Sailormann]

It will be difficult to match the repair material with the original gel coat, but I think that if you were to add 2 or 3 vinyl stripes over it the diference in colour would be much less noticeable. If you use a colour that has a high degree of contrast it will almost disappear.