drying out hulls

[rancher44]

The boat I was looking at had an estimate of 8K I really didn't believe the written bid . What I offered the seller was I would buy the boat and pay him the 8k in the price but he would pay the yard the final bill . Surprise of surprises he refused --I knew from reading the blog here that the real bill would probably run 20-30 in the end.

Lauraj Good luck on drying out your hulls . the surveyor I talked to said it could take up to a year to dry out

[minaret]

Originally Posted by rancher44

The boat I was looking at had an estimate of 8K I really didn't believe the written bid . What I offered the seller was I would buy the boat and pay him the 8k in the price but he would pay the yard the final bill . Surprise of surprises he refused --I knew from reading the blog here that the real bill would probably run 20-30 in the end.

Lauraj Good luck on drying out your hulls . the surveyor I talked to said it could take up to a year to dry out

2-3 weeks with a Hotvac system. And it'll be drier than it could ever get air drying. Find a better equipped yard.

[rancher44]

Do you know what the cost per ft is on a hot vac ?
Say for a 47 ft cat.

[minaret]

Originally Posted by rancher44

Do you know what the cost per ft is on a hot vac ?
Say for a 47 ft cat.

Not unless you are in the Pacific Northwest. I believe CF member Anchors Away runs an east coast yard so equipped, perhaps PM him?

[ohdrinkboy]

anchors away did a bottom peel re-build on my boat. overall a good job. i opted to let it dry on it's own after the peel as i had the time. they had a hot-vac system running 7 or 8 years ago.

[Cheechako]

Does anyone know the actual situation on this boat? The OP's first post says the PO says it needs stripped and dried for a season. What does that really mean? are there blisters? did someone with a meter read a high reading? My experience is that a high meter reading on a hull is common unless you remove all paint to bare gel coat where you are taking the reading. The paint holds water and they all read high. At any rate... anyone know the facts? are we leaping to conclusions here?

[rancher44]

On this boat the hull had been stripped where the blisters were and the pockets were filled with epoxy after 3 months drying . the surveyor said the hulls needed drying actually 2 surveyors had the same opinion . The owner has been totally evasive and has tried to hide as much of the condition of the boat as possible even to go to the point of suggesting that in order to save money the boat didn't need to be hauled as it was surveyed 5 months ago. Actually the boat had been surveyed 30 days ago

[minaret]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

Does anyone know the actual situation on this boat? The OP's first post says the PO says it needs stripped and dried for a season. What does that really mean? are there blisters? did someone with a meter read a high reading? My experience is that a high meter reading on a hull is common unless you remove all paint to bare gel coat where you are taking the reading. The paint holds water and they all read high. At any rate... anyone know the facts? are we leaping to conclusions here?

It's not a question of "the paint holds water". Moisture meters read water content through relative conductivity. Bottom paint has copper in it. Copper conducts, and therefore bottom paint (or any other source of metal) will always read a false positive. If you've ever seen anyone try to get a reading on bottom paint, they had no idea what they were doing.

[Ostinato]

Unfortunately, epoxy is not a guarantee of no water intrusion. A number of years ago, I spent a couple of years and $10G on peeling, drying out, relaminating with epoxy and the barrier coating only to find blisters again in 10 years in the first layer of the new glass.

Recently on a different boat, I had a new rudder built using epoxy. The yard used a epoxy filler that turned out to be water soluble based on a discussion with Interlux. The rudder then had to be barrier coated.

My lessons include not using micro balloons or putting color in the epoxy to help in the sanding process and of course, checking out the materials very thoroughly. Epoxy slows down the absorption process but is not failsafe. Unless you really like projects and the boat is dirt cheap, I'd walk too.

[bletso]

We had a problem with Vigah. First haul out she was 34000 pounds. We had water incursion from the bottom rudder gudgeon into the ballast and the bilge sump. After we addressed the problem by letting her drain for 6 months plus, and doing some fiberglass/epoxy repair work, she had lost 2000 pounds and was back to her design weight.

Another job we did was a complete gel coat removal and test for hydrolyzed gell coat. She had a bad case of the measles. Story can be read on my blog. I don't have enough posts to put my blog address but ...sailboatvigah.... look in background/previous...

It can be done by anyone with some basic fiberglass skills. It is just more to do.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by bletso

We had a problem with Vigah. First haul out she was 34000 pounds. We had water incursion from the bottom rudder gudgeon into the ballast and the bilge sump. After we addressed the problem by letting her drain for 6 months plus, and doing some fiberglass/epoxy repair work, she had lost 2000 pounds and was back to her design weight.

The boat had 240 gallons of water held in the laminate? That seems impossible? I assume any pump-able standing water, etc in the bilge was not counted.

Mark

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by Ostinato

Unfortunately, epoxy is not a guarantee of no water intrusion. A number of years ago, I spent a couple of years and $10G on peeling, drying out, relaminating with epoxy and the barrier coating only to find blisters again in 10 years in the first layer of the new glass.

Recently on a different boat, I had a new rudder built using epoxy. The yard used a epoxy filler that turned out to be water soluble based on a discussion with Interlux. The rudder then had to be barrier coated.

My lessons include not using micro balloons or putting color in the epoxy to help in the sanding process and of course, checking out the materials very thoroughly. Epoxy slows down the absorption process but is not failsafe. Unless you really like projects and the boat is dirt cheap, I'd walk too.

Yeah, no guarantees for sure. I have had good luck on a couple of badly blistered boats using real epoxy resin... even though those boats got no special kind of drying process other than sitting.
One boat I had had so much water in the hull that the inside of the bilge was blistered as well as the outside! That one I never attempted to resin.

[Stumble]

Originally Posted by colemj

And charged him for the barrier coat, right?

Mark

Actually no. It was the boats captain, me (mate), and the deckhand arguing with the owner. We were salaried anyway, so we just got on to more important stuff. I guess we could have added another layer of the laminating epoxy the boat was built with, but none of us could justify adding the weight, then spending weeks polishing the bottom again.

[bletso]

Originally Posted by colemj

The boat had 240 gallons of water held in the laminate? That seems impossible? I assume any pump-able standing water, etc in the bilge was not counted.

Mark

It is a full keel boat and the water was into the ballast area which is not accessible. It ran out for a long time. Then whilst I was grinding out the gudgeon area and I opened up the gudgeon mounting holes it gushed out under pressure and that was months after it had stopped leaking on its own. I wouldn't swear the amount or the accuracy of the lift, but it held a lot of water.

[colemj]

I understand now - it was tanked up in there. I read your post as that was the weight of water removed from letting the laminate dry out.

Mark