CONTINUOUSWAVE

Just bought a 1989 Sport 13, and I need to give it a little care prior to launching it this spring. As you can see from the pictures, the hull needs some work, and I'm looking for feedback from this community to see if I'm on the right track.

I've been doing some research in the forums and narrowed down my list of to-do's to the following:

--wet sand the entire hull with 600 grit;

--use a rubbing compound to remove the oxidization on the blue paint (is it oxidization?). I'm thinking of using this 3M Marine Rubbing Compound; and,


--wax the hull; give me recommendations of what wax to use.

Does the above sound like the right approach to take given the pictures below?

You should repair that big chip in the gel coat that is exposing the underlying laminate before working on the gloss appearance of the hull.

The blue paint is anti-fouling paint. You do not polish or sand it. If you are keeping the boat in the water, you may want to reapply a new coat of anti-fouling paint. If the boat will not live in the water, you might want to remove the anti-fouling paint and restore the hull gel coat below it.

As for your two-step combination of sanding and polishing, try it first on a small area to see how it works. You may find that adding several intermediate steps between 600-grit wet sanding and marine polish will help. Your two-step approach may create too much abrasion for a polish to handle.

The old favorite paste wax (which is somewhat labor intensive to apply) is Collinite Fleetwax. I have used Collinite No. 925 Fiberglass Boat Wax with good results. On my boat, which is stored indoors and only sees the water a few weeks each year, the 925 wax lasts several years,

The hull does not look bad enough to need sanding. I recommend you try a polish/wax combination product before going to the extreme of sanding the gel coat.

The bottom paint looks pretty far gone and appears to have been poorly applied with, perhaps, a paint brush. If it were my boat I would use an electrical random orbit sander to remove the bulk of the bottom paint and regain a smooth surface. Use some caution with this job as bottom paint is a biocide. I would, at the least, wear a dust mask. Don't do this over your lawn or close to decorative plants. If the dust falls to the ground it will sterilize the area for several years. Don't ask how I know this.

If the boat will spend a lot of time in a slip or moored to a buoy I would apply fresh bottom paint. If the boat is to be trailered I would consider removing all the bottom paint and restoring the bottom appearance or, if the bottom has been seriously abraded, I would use a good quality non-antifouling paint to dress it up.

I would begin by repairing any damage to the hull as previously recommended.

--wet sand the entire hull with 600 grit.

You're over simplifying the sanding process. Start with 600 grit, then 1000, 1500, 2000, 3000 grit. Then wax. It will renew the gelcoat. However, if the gelcoat is damaged or worn off in spots, you will have to regelcoat the boat or paint it. There is no middle ground here. From the looks of your pictures, polishing it is a waste of energy.

rich