First Boat and She's a Beauty!

[Stuff4Toys]

Took delivery of our first "Sail Boat" Sunday and she's a real beauty. 1982 Catalina 25 Tall Sail Swing Keel boat.

Poor little boat sat tied up for two years in the water and after 8 hours of pressure washing, acid wash and scraping barnacles, I can tell what color she is.

White/Blue

We have alot of work to do, first question is, what's the best method of removing all the barnacle and oyster feet from the boat? I've scraped and scraped and have 90% of the bulk of the stuff off.

What's next? Acid? Sanding? What's your pleasure?

Pictures coming as soon as my post count is high enough.
JOhn ><>

[Stuff4Toys]

[TintedChrome]

Congrats I remember the feeling of taking delivery of my first boat... only a month ago, and I can only imagine how elated you feel.. Now the work begins; but you're in good hands here - tons of knowledge!

[Stuff4Toys]

Thanks, If the system will let me, I will post more pictures. They are a little large, but I am using the Facebook version of the pics.
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._7389382_n.jpg

Need to post a few more messages before I can add more pictures.

I have a majority of the barnacles scraped off, not sure what the next step is.

[Stillraining]

Barnicals can really wreck havok with gel coat...They can actually destroy it more or less the crittors "glue" penitrates into the gel coat....Was there bottom paint to deal with?..If not

The best thing to try once you have scraped to the best of your ability is to wet sand with 400 to 600 tell you can no longer feel them when sliding your hand over the hull then an agressive rubbing compound to get compound curve areas and depresions in the hull...Be carfull wet sanding as hulls are not perficily flat and you can sand through the gel coat in high spots trying to get into low spots.

If your going with bottom paint you dont have to be so finiky about it all but it would be nice if doing all this work to go the exta mile get them 100% gone and then barrior coat the bottom before botom painting.

Lots of work ahead of you...but its done every day in boat yards so dont despair.

Congrats by the way

[deniseO30]

Barrier coat would be good idea if your going to keep her in the water. I could be wrong but I thought barnacles can make "dips" in the gell coat.

[sailingdog]

AFAIK, barnacles don't damage gelcoat. The problem is that barnacles create a natural adhesive that is among the strongest known, and removing the barnacles can damage the gelcoat... if you left them on, there would be NO DAMAGE.

Barrier coating a boat is a good idea, especially if you're going to leave it in the water.

[jaschrumpf]

Any particular reason to not just coat right over the remnants of the barnacles? If their adhesive is that good, there's not much danger of it coming off and leaving a blank spot where...

a barnacle might grow?

[carl762]

Boy oh Boy, is the bottom of that boat ...

[rockDAWG]

OMG, this is gross. You are a brave man.