black under bottom pait

[jwjab]

HI ALL,
I have scraped away some bottom paint of a boat I 'm looking at buying its 37 years old ...41 tartan....I noticed black underneath the paint...does this mean the hull/bottom of this fiberglass boat is shot/not worth buying?
jwjabs

[mitiempo]

Forgetting color what condition is it in?
Bottom paint, gelcoat and standard paints come in black. By itself I don't think it means anything. If you pursue this boat and it meets your other requirements the surveyor can tell you what it is probably.

[jwjab]

The bottom paint has been red since birth...no black ever
I had another vessel which had those spots never thought much about them...sanded them a way yearly and repainted.
jwjab

[mitiempo]

Do you mean black spots or a black finish?

[sailingfool]

The bottom is probably bottom-coated with VC tar.
VC TAR 2 EPOXY BARRIER COAT KIT YEA729 - QUART Binnacle.com
If there are no blisters, this should not be a cause for concern.

[arf145]

And if that is a barrier coat--which was my first thought--consider yourself lucky. Not a bad thing to have.

[roline]

I have Interlux fiberglass bottom coat (black-hard) under ablative micron paint. When the shark gray color turns black, its time to do the bottom.
My other boat has VC 17 over top the VC tar.
The local slime is best removed from the micron, the VC takes more effort to remove...