New bottom paint falling off in patches

[annsni]

We had a similar issue with our new to us boat and that winter, we took the bottom to the gelcoat and started over again. It was a big job but necessary and now we have a good epoxy layer that is one color (he might have done two layers?? I don't remember and he's not here to ask) and then I think hubby did 3 layers of a good ablative paint on top of that. That was 13 years ago and he's just had to do a good light sanding and a paint job (one layer) every other year since. He will do a double layer of new paint on leading edges but we've not had a problem since.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by Pete7

Best guess is the antifoul has failed due to the previous surface not being prepared properly.

This ^^^

[donradcliffe]

I think you are the victim of a poor job by the last bottom painter. Its pretty clear that it isn't the adherence of the last coat that is the problem, its the original coat on whatever that white layer is. However, there are two possible scenarios. First, the original coat was starting to flake off, (it would have been obvious to me during the prep) and the painter ignored it. Second, the new paint was incompatible with the earlier coats and the new paint's solvents destroyed the original bond. Either way, I'd be very unhappy with the painter. I'm just an amateur, but after 25-30 bottom jobs, I've never had one flake like that. If it was my boat, I'd haul it and scrape/sand until I got it all down to the white layer and hit it with some 80 grit. I noticed some growth on the new bottom paint after 6 months in cold water, which means it isn't really very good stuff.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

I noticed some growth on the new bottom paint after 6 months in cold water, which means it isn't really very good stuff.

You have an unrealistic expectation for anti fouling paint performance in the Bay Area.

[grae]

any chance these locations are where it was on the stands?

I've had issues since swapping to ablative from hard where the AF seems to come off where the wood blocks atop the stands sit, it feels like with the wood retains moisture over the winter it seems to get under the paint and cause it to flake off just in that area, I generally sand, tie coat x2 the AF x2 again and make sure the stands are in a different location next time. (disclaimer: IamNotAnExpert based purely on my own assumptions and not on any real investigation

Grae Morrison

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by MarkSF

Interesting. Svendsens took the previous owner of my boat to the cleaners with a major repair, while Grand Marina have always done an excellent job for me. I avoid Svendsens like the plague now. You should see the 5 page invoice I have from the PO, detailing every nut, bolt, brush, cloth, tissue, tyvek suit, glove, dust mask, you name it. My only theory is that he said something that really ****ed them off.

I'll start by saying Svendsens is the best Chandlry I have ever found. Great service, friendly people. The yard???...hit and miss. I had them sand my bottom for me to paint. Most of the workers are Hispanic and their quality of work varies from one guy to another. From excellent work to not very good. They gave me the short, over-weight guy that did as little as possible. I counted his hours since I live on my boat. He took tons of unscheduled breaks. I counted around 5 1/2 hours put into the hull and was charged for 8 hours. I protested and was compensated after I told the yard supervisor which worker it was. I had the feeling I was not the first to complain.
Before I painted, I shone a light on the hull at night to see any paint imperfections before painting. The reason I had is sanded was that I have some bottom paint blisters from a prior bottom job from someone else. I found dozens of additional blisters and addressed them...at night!
Since then, I have had 90% of old bottom paint removed here in Mexico. The quality of work here is not much better. Before I paint and launch, I will have to fair the bottom.
Most of the bottom paint failures I see are poorly preped bottoms. It is highly unlikely you will have any recourse. Best to just move on and give them a negative review on Yelp after you establish that in fact, it it the AF and not epoxy. Epoxy generally stick very well.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by Celestialsailor

Most of the workers are Hispanic and their quality of work varies from one guy to another.

So if you were somehow magically able to find a boatyard that didn't employ hispanic labor (which of course, is impossible, at least in this state), the quality of the work would be better?

Gosh, that's not racist at all.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by MarkSF

Interesting. Svendsens took the previous owner of my boat to the cleaners with a major repair, while Grand Marina have always done an excellent job for me. I avoid Svendsens like the plague now. You should see the 5 page invoice I have from the PO, detailing every nut, bolt, brush, cloth, tissue, tyvek suit, glove, dust mask, you name it. My only theory is that he said something that really ****ed them off.

Mark, they do tend to list everything, don't they? Damn accountants.

I did find that I had to "manage" their own "project manager" but they did excellent work on the fiberglass repair, their metal work is great compared to Grand Marina's (the new pulpit shines, whereas the "new " 2014 pulpit from Grand mottled in the first month!!!), and it's hard to get new uncoated lifelines wrong.

We did discuss flaking old paint (the boat's 30 years old) but they prepped the work well and it looks just fine, a month and a half on. I used to use Grand since they did the bottom paint well for me for the past 18 years. But the guys who bought the place from Peter just don't like their customers. Not a nice business model.

[W3GAC]

May not be same issue but I purchased a 1985 O'Day 28 'project boat' 7 yrs ago that had been sitting in the owner's side yard for five years. I'm a reasonably experienced (but self taught over 40 yrs) boater/ engineer and did a reasonable job of prepping the old bottom paint before applying new ablative bottom paint. Despite that I had rough sanded the entire bottom's old blue bottom paint/ rinsed, let dry... as I was rolling on my new bottom all was going well until I was about 3/4 done. Then as the roller started to get really tacky as I overlapped areas that were also tacky... poker chip size piece of new paint started coming off/ adhering to the tacky roller. I could see the faded/ oxidized baby blue of the old bottom paint on the bottom of the chips on the roller. Upon closer inspection the old paint was very 'powdery.' While I had sanded, I had only scratched the surface of a/ multiple thick layers of old powdery bottom paint that had no adhesion to the bottom.

Given this was a project boat and I'm a diver I used a brush to go over these spots the next day. I knew no damage would come to the hull, just the nuisance of quick barnacle bill up. But knew I had a much bigger job to do the next season. Interestingly, upon hauling, there were not any new bare spots so it adhered enough to stay on, but not enough to withstand a sticky rollers tug. But sanded it all off the following year. Good luck.


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[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by fstbttms

So if you were somehow magically able to find a boatyard that didn't employ hispanic labor (which of course, is impossible, at least in this state), the quality of the work would be better?

Gosh, that's not racist at all.

Well it figures you would pull the race card. You conveniently left out " varies from one guy to another. From excellent work to not very good". Svendnsens does try to save labor cost and without invoking a fight here, I would guess the Hispanic labor is cheaper. In that yard there was a young, hard worker (Hispanic) that was doing a bottom job on a 40+ foot racer, while I was hauled out. He did an excellent job on that boat. I suppose it's the roll of the dice as to which worker you get.

[MarkSF]

Originally Posted by fstbttms

You have an unrealistic expectation for anti fouling paint performance in the Bay Area.

Perhaps he could tell us what paint he's getting 6 months out of with no growth, because I'd like to use it next time!

[Clamdigger62]

I have been an Interlux Yacht Paint Center for many years and from my experience I am sorry to say it is not the fault of the yard who painted your bottom.
What is happening is that over time the original coat of bottom paint is loosing its adhesion and falling off the bottom of your boat taking all the other layers with it.
What needs to be done is get the bottom soda blasted, wash down the bottom with water, apply two coats of epoxy barrier coat (Interlux Interprotect) While the second coat is still tacky put your first coat of bottom paint on and you will never have this problem again.

[boatpoker]

Everything I've read here is speculation. If those bare spots are gelcoat, you are dealing with one scenario if epoxy, another.

Regarding your issue with the yard that did the work. What does the work order say ?
"Slap another coat of paint on" or prepare and re-coat anti-fouling".

Until those two questions are answered all advice is just chatter.

[leftbrainstuff]

Originally Posted by Liefo

This past week someone was diving my neighbor's boat in our marina in the SF Bay Area and he did a courtesy check under our boat and reported big chunks of bottom paint falling off. I was pretty shocked to hear this given that we had the bottom paint done when we bought the boat six months ago up in Washington (boat was sailed down, not delivered).

I jumped in the water and captured video of the missing paint patches:https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5frv5oxth...KlI9k-AZa?dl=0

There are a dozen or more patches of paint missing, ranging from the diameter of a mug to larger than a dinner plate. None on the keel or rudder that I could see easily, but it was hard to get a good look everywhere. The paint didn't rub off per say, but I was able to chip it off with my finger nail in some places. When I chipped it away, the area underneath had a blue stain/tint.

The owner of the shop that did the bottom paint job is telling me that this isn't something that they did wrong. He says that all they did was a bottom paint job, and what is happening here is that the epoxy barrier, which he says is under the bottom paint, is separating from the hull. He says this can happen to fiberglass hulls after 20-30 years, and that addressing the barrier wasn't part of the service they performed except in a few select places close to the water line where there was evidence of it needing done. This boat is from '92. He said that long periods out of the water can also cause this separation of the barrier from the hull, which has not occurred given that the boat sat for six years unused prior to my purchase. He then went on to say that sitting for so long could have been the issue, as new anti-fouling paint was not applied in the appropriate interval during that time. That being said, the paint was not in bad condition when the boat came out of the water.

I'm flumoxed, having just spent 1500+ on having them paint the bottom, only now to find out I may have to either have that entirely redone (costing 2k+ here) or perhaps that it is a much bigger job to have both bottom paint and barrier stripped everywhere and have all of it redone (5-6k?!).

If this is something that happens to boats around this age I wonder why did they not bring that up or counsel me that it was appropriate to do that full job initially, especially if they found evidence of barrier needing to be redone in a few places which they did address. I am struggling to understand what is actually happening to the boat/paint based on the evidence shown in the footage.

Two decisions I have to make in short order. First being what is the correct job that needs to be done to address the issue, the second being the extend to hold this shop accountable to their work which is now falling apart. It seems that either way I need to get this boat out of the water and into a yard asap so as to minimize risk of damage to the fiberglass and blistering.

Any advice would be immensely helpful.

Sounds like you're being spun a line of bs. Epoxy does not fall off or fail after x years. I'd expect the yard to say we applied x over y using the procedure z.

If they found issues i'd expect them to have informed you or had you sign acceptance if you went against their advice.

You need to confirm where the failure interface is. Likely to be at the anti fouling interface.

Do you know what anti fouling was applied and what anti fouling was pre existing?

Without knowing the specifics its difficult to comment further.


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[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by leftbrainstuff

Sounds like you're being spun a line of bs. Epoxy does not fall off or fail after x years. I'd expect the yard to say we applied x over y using the procedure z.

If they found issues i'd expect them to have informed you or had you sign acceptance if you went against their advice.

You need to confirm where the failure interface is. Likely to be at the anti fouling interface.

Do you know what anti fouling was applied and what anti fouling was pre existing?

Without knowing the specifics its difficult to comment further.


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I agree completely that it probably is bs. I know I have signed consent to do work forms that releases a yard of liability. Even in court, there would be too many variables to get a settlement.
If the paint is falling off, chances are the whole bottom would have to be stripped. Otherwise I think the paint will continue to fall off.