[StarTracker]

It used to be that way here too, but these days all boats are on cradles rather than individual stands. There a few loose stands around but they are seldom available, so the travel lift is usually required.

It definitely pays to maintain good relations with the yard crews but there is only so much they can do without the boss noticing!

I do try to splash around lunch time, and they will leave the boat in the slings while they go for lunch, and they will usually take a long lunch!



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That sucks! I hate cradles. Yeah you couldn't get away with that on a cradle, lol. Funny thing is, the boss will often be wellll aware of it if you supply beer. I always was. If I knew the owner didn't use the beer to try and take advantage, he'd get a big plus in my books, and I'd certainly let a few things that might make his life easier slide.

 

[cascoamarillo]

Going back to the original post....
Sorry eherlihy, I don't bring much wisdom here, since I have the same questions and concerns. So just following. Anyway, chemical bottom paint stripper in our latitudes (NE) is a difficult choice because of the temperatures in spring.
But I have a question. So you had "to apply 2 coats of Petit Protect Barrier Coat to any area that had bare fiberglass exposed". I though doing it that way, water could get in between the layers (fiberglass / new barrier coat) since you are applying only spots, not the entire hull. How did it hold those patches? Thanks

 

[StarTracker]

Going back to the original post....
Sorry eherlihy, I don't bring much wisdom here, since I have the same questions and concerns. So just following. Anyway, chemical bottom paint stripper in our latitudes (NE) is a difficult choice because of the temperatures in spring.
But I have a question. So you had "to apply 2 coats of Petit Protect Barrier Coat to any area that had bare fiberglass exposed". I though doing it that way, water could get in between the layers (fiberglass / new barrier coat) since you are applying only spots, not the entire hull. How did it hold those patches? Thanks

In practice I've never seen it do that when someone follows the instructions on the can. While epoxy coating the whole bottom is a better idea if you've got the paint off anyways, spot priming with it after repairs is better than nothing.
The only time I've seen a lifting issue was when a company rushed polyester filler, then epoxy on a few spots when the hull wasn't really dry due to weather, hadn't been washed with fresh water. It was below the min temperature recommended for the barrier coat, they applied multiple layers without enough time between coats, and bottom paint over the final coat as soon as it tacked up slightly. Which of the variables at which layer caused it I couldn't say. They had to redo it a few weeks later after blistered/fell off.

 

[eherlihy]

I have used the barrier coat for (fairing) repairs to my keel without any issue. I apply a coat, wait a couple hours (depends on temp) for it to dry, and apply another. I then paint with bottom paint after the second coat skins over. I have completed small patches within a day. For this project, I will be applying two coats of barrier coating over the entire rudder.

I have read that the trick to using the chemical stripper is to cover the area with 2 mil plastic sheeting as soon as the stripper is applied. There is only 1 coat of paint on the rudder, so I have great expectations about the effectiveness of stripper. The pressure washing in June removed a lot of the paint that the guy in Florida applied. I have read good reviews of Aqua Strip, and am leaning toward that.

 

[StarTracker]

I have used the barrier coat for (fairing) repairs to my keel without any issue. I apply a coat, wait a couple hours (depends on temp) for it to dry, and apply another. I then paint with bottom paint after the second coat skins over. I have completed small patches within a day. For this project, I will be applying two coats of barrier coating over the entire rudder.

I have read that the trick to using the chemical stripper is to cover the area with 2 mil plastic sheeting as soon as the stripper is applied. There is only 1 coat of paint on the rudder, so I have great expectations about the effectiveness of stripper. The pressure washing in June removed a lot of the paint that the guy in Florida applied. I have read good reviews of Aqua Strip, and am leaning toward that.

Depends how liquid your stripper is. If it's thick, plastic works great. If it's thin and liquid as some can be in hot weather especially, I like to apply as thick a coat as is reasonable without it running off all over the show, apply a layer of white paper towel, dry it will stick easily. Then wet with more stripper. Then coat in plastic. The paper towel acts as a sort of reserve keeping everything active, for days if need be.
Quick trick for inter protect/petit barrier coat. The optimal bottom paint bonding is easiest to check by going to where you started the last coat, always coat in the same order to keep application times the same. Lightly press the pad of a clean thumb on it. When you can leave a thumb print in it but you don't get any paint coming off on your thumb it's exactly ready, like al Dente pasta, the window is not huge.

Oh forgot one more thing, if you are doing a smallish area that is particularly stubborn with stripper, I use black contractor garbage bag instead of the clear plastic. The heat seems to really accelerate it.
I generally blast or scrape/sand but sometimes you are stuck with strippers, lack of blasting time available/cost, or you've got hard paint over soft. Scraping that with a carbide scraper and not damaging the hull is not easy.

 

[Sailormon6]

If there's only one coat of ablative paint, I'd be inclined to just wet sand it off. Ablative paint is so soft that wet sanding will cut through it easily. If it's only one coat of hard finish paint, chemical stripper should take one coat off easily. When the old paint becomes wrinkled and lifts off the surface, it's ready to scrape away.

 

[pdqaltair]

"Uncured paint is indistinguishable from pain that has properly cured." Only somebody who doesn't clean boat bottoms for a living would make a ridiculous statement like that. Uncured paint is very soft, unstable and easily scrubbed off. I see it all the time (especially at the jackstand pad spots) and any other hull diver will tell you the same.

^^ Yup. You just have too look.

 

[Jim Butler]

Unfortunately, getting ripped off by the yard is par for the course... In this instance, however, they were actually trying to help me out. They gave me free bottom paint to fix where the other yard had totally screwed me.

Unfortunately, there was no way to verify the work that the yard in Florida did at the time. I dropped the boat off with them, and the owner made very clear that he wanted me to stay away until the job that I had contracted with him to do was done. If anyone wants to know of a yard in Fort Myers to NOT bring your boat to, PM me,

Wow, “stay away until we finish” means “We don’t want you to see what we do to your fiberglass and/or what materials we use”. RUN !

 

[ghcarey]

Has anyone here had any positive or negative experience with bottom paint strippers that they could share?

I had a new rudder installed on my boat last year while in Florida. While the rudder was being installed, I had the yard paint the bottom of my boat. I specified that they were to apply 2 coats of Petit Protect Barrier Coat to any area that had bare fiberglass exposed, and the entire rudder. The paint that I specified was Petit Hydrocoat ECO (~$300/gal), and I paid the yard $330/gallon for the two gallons of paint that he said they needed. I told him that I have painted the bottom of my boat several times in the past, and it only required a gallon, but he insisted, and I relented. The paint that they used was Petit Hydrocoat (~$80/gal), which I know because I insisted that I be given the left over bottom paint. The yard owner insisted that ALL paints are "ECO," and did not know why I was complaining. Eventually, I convinced him that he had used cheap paint and he refunded me $300.

After I returned to Rhode Island in June 2021, I had the boat short hauled, because there was lot of growth, and I wanted to check the anodes after 6 months. The power wash for the short haul removed both the growth AND the bottom paint from the rudder! I learned that the yard that installed the rudder did not apply ANY barrier coat, nor did they sand the new gelcoat on the rudder. They just slapped paint over it!

I replaced the anodes, and the guys at my home marina gave me some spare oil-based anti fouling paint. Oil based paint would cure in the water, where water-based Hydrocoat would simply wash off. I slapped the oil-based on the bare spots, and they re-splashed the boat.

Here is what the rudder looked like at the September 2021 haul out;
View attachment 141738
The darker blue is the oil based paint that I slapped over all of the bare spots.

This spring I will be repainting the whole bottom, and this time it will be with Hydrocoat ECO. I will be applying two coats of Barrier Coat to the rudder, which should be relatively easy to strip, because there is only 1 coat of oil based and water based paint. Rather than sand or soda-blast, I want to try a chamical stripper. Any recommendations?

eherlihy..... I stripped the bottom paint off my 30 O'Day years ago and then painted the hull with Interlux Interprotect barrier coat. I used a product that was called Peel Away to remove the paint. It was a thick gel that you applied to the paint and the paint would peel away from the hull. I used trowels to get the paint off the hull. It was cold weather when I did it and I had a long sleeve shirt and the gel would work its way off the rubber gloves and down the sleeve around the wrist and I would get light burns around the wrists from the gel. It did a great job on the hull. When I was finished the hull looked the same as it did when the boat was brand new. It did make a mess on the ground under the boat. There was another boat near me at the boat yard that decided to have his paint stripped by blasting with walnut shells. It was a lot easier job than what I went through but the hull was not as clean as mine when they finished. If I was to need to do it again, I would have it blasted to get the paint off.

 

[Jim Butler]

Has anyone here had any positive or negative experience with bottom paint strippers that they could share?

I had a new rudder installed on my boat last year while in Florida. While the rudder was being installed, I had the yard paint the bottom of my boat. I specified that they were to apply 2 coats of Petit Protect Barrier Coat to any area that had bare fiberglass exposed, and the entire rudder. The paint that I specified was Petit Hydrocoat ECO (~$300/gal), and I paid the yard $330/gallon for the two gallons of paint that he said they needed. I told him that I have painted the bottom of my boat several times in the past, and it only required a gallon, but he insisted, and I relented. The paint that they used was Petit Hydrocoat (~$80/gal), which I know because I insisted that I be given the left over bottom paint. The yard owner insisted that ALL paints are "ECO," and did not know why I was complaining. Eventually, I convinced him that he had used cheap paint and he refunded me $300.

After I returned to Rhode Island in June 2021, I had the boat short hauled, because there was lot of growth, and I wanted to check the anodes after 6 months. The power wash for the short haul removed both the growth AND the bottom paint from the rudder! I learned that the yard that installed the rudder did not apply ANY barrier coat, nor did they sand the new gelcoat on the rudder. They just slapped paint over it!

I replaced the anodes, and the guys at my home marina gave me some spare oil-based anti fouling paint. Oil based paint would cure in the water, where water-based Hydrocoat would simply wash off. I slapped the oil-based on the bare spots, and they re-splashed the boat.

Here is what the rudder looked like at the September 2021 haul out;
View attachment 141738
The darker blue is the oil based paint that I slapped over all of the bare spots.

This spring I will be repainting the whole bottom, and this time it will be with Hydrocoat ECO. I will be applying two coats of Barrier Coat to the rudder, which should be relatively easy to strip, because there is only 1 coat of oil based and water based paint. Rather than sand or soda-blast, I want to try a chamical stripper. Any recommendations?

Peel Away Still Most Effective Bottom Paint Stripper - Practical Sailor

Since 1974, Practical Sailor’s independent testing has taken the guesswork out of boat and gear buying.

www.practical-sailor.com

There are two versions of Peel Away. One is supposed to take off the barrier paint and he other leaves it. I have no data other than that provided by Practical Sailor.

 

[Silverton guy]

I have a 34 foot Silverton express it has 20 years worth of paint buildup on it which was ablative and even being a blade if it was hotter than a rock I used a combination of airplane stripper which is available from any auto parts store autobody supply place and you have to be careful because if you leave it on too long when you get down to the bottom coats you’ll you’ll damage the gelcoat and you should neutralize it with a wash of baking soda and water and then followed by a Touareg processor acetone the money I spent on sandpaper time in an airplane stripper in the end it wasn’t worth itIt would’ve been cheaper to just have to think soda blasting and And then just proceed with what I did it which was three coats of barrier coat and four coats of ablative micron extra I have a friend in Glen Cove that’s building 100 foot sailboat and he’s going to go through the same process he’s going to have a soda blasted . It’s so much faster and cheaper you get a clean product with minimal sanding afterwards and you start fresh plus the paint has a good bite who feels like laying on her back and going through all of that sanding and paint stripping even the sheets that they sell they go on will not take the gelcoat off they have paint stripper is that the one with the sheet and you said you pull up for 20 minutes it’ll cost you a fortune

 

[eherlihy]

Guys, thanks for the suggestions of soda-blasting, but I'm not blasting the rudder.

I have had that done on the entire boat in the past, but this time it is ONLY the rudder.

Also the marina where I keep the boat has been a MAJOR PITA with regard to contractors; I wanted to have the guy that has wrapped my boat every year for the past 5 years wrap my boat in September. He got the run-around by the new management at the marina, and finally told me that he won't wrap the boat there anymore. So, I asked the yard manager to do it. It took them 3 weeks to get it done, and while I expected a $700-900 bill, I was shocked that they charged me $1,500!

I considered sanding too. After all it is only 1 layer of paint (maybe 2 where I went over the crap job that the guy in Florida did). However, I expect that the yard manager would be out ranting at me about dust and not having them do it. No thanks.

If I use chemical stripper on the rudder only, I don't expect that there will be any fuss from the marina.

 

[StarTracker]

Guys, thanks for the suggestions of soda-blasting, but I'm not blasting the rudder.

I have had that done on the entire boat in the past, but this time it is ONLY the rudder.
View attachment 141804

Also the marina where I keep the boat has been a MAJOR PITA with regard to contractors; I wanted to have the guy that has wrapped my boat every year for the past 5 years wrap my boat in September. He got the run-around by the new management at the marina, and finally told me that he won't wrap the boat there anymore. So, I asked the yard manager to do it. It took them 3 weeks to get it done, and while I expected a $700-900 bill, I was shocked that they charged me $1,500!

I considered sanding too. After all it is only 1 layer of paint (maybe 2 where I went over the crap job that the guy in Florida did). However, I expect that the yard manager would be out ranting at me about dust and not having them do it. No thanks.

If I use chemical stripper on the rudder only, I don't expect that there will be any fuss from the marina.

Chemical can be OK. They might be penises though. Often are when they're playing the no outside trade and charge ya extra game though. Blasting a rudder is no good, unless the guy next to you is getting a blasting job done, too much $ otherwise. You're on the right track with chemicals, given what's on the rudder.

 

[John Nicholas]

[I have used paint strippers several times when yards would not allow sanding or blasting. The best product I found was Sea Recovery, Coatings Remover. Its consistency is similar to Greek yoghurt and you need to use a thick layer (3 or 4 mm) which should be left for about 2 - 3 hours. The good part is that it washes off with water. Some scraping is also required.

 

[Bird Dog]

Ehirlihy,

What make/model is your boat? Unrelated to your topic, but quite a thrust line from the angle of the prop shaft as pictured. Always curious about various designs…

 

[eherlihy]

Ehirlihy,

What make/model is your boat? Unrelated to your topic, but quite a thrust line from the angle of the prop shaft as pictured. Always curious about various designs…

PM sent