BOATWORKS

John Arrufat peers into the abyss—and comes away with a much sturdier boat

John Arrufat deals with his boat’s blistering issues; Chip Lawson finds a cool way to clean his stainless steel; Roger Hughes builds a new dinghy cover; and Annie Dike experiences rudder problems

Iknew my Cape Carib 33 had bad blisters before we hauled it for survey, but I bought it anyway. You know, of course, it was the only boat out there. Six months later when I had time, I hauled it and with ice pick, chisel and mallet I struck at all the swollen spots and hem- orrhaging breaks in the gelcoat. One of them spit out some disgusting vinegary stuff. There were an awful lot of them all over the port side of the hull, and the starboard side also had a few. The consequences of my choice in boats suddenly hit me in the stomach.

“My boat could be dissolving!” I laughed out loud to myself. “Is the decay centered on the bumps and cracks in the gelcoat and grinding those areas will take the problem away, or is this boat just an old bag of water like the one my dad hung on the front of his Dodge?”

Some reading suggested opening the wounds and letting them drain for months in dry dock and periodic washing. Not practical. Two months working alone on weekends was all I could afford, and I would be in the yard for other projects as well. Looking back, it also took some Fridays—enough to get me dirty looks at my job.

My nervousness from what I had taken on single-

handed masquerading as gusto, I popped a mask on my face and leaned into grinding all the ugly wet mulch of rotten glass from all over the hull.

My Bosch grinder with its yard-required debris-catching hood and 8-amp shop vac type vacuum ate up the rotten laminate. My old Skil grinder got what the big Bosch couldn’t reach.

Cutting out one infection often led to another one next to it. Some soft areas got wide and deep. The heavy cross-hatching of the woven roving began to show at about 1/4in. The hull varies at 7/16in thickness. Five or six craters going 1/4in deep had me worried: when might I see some solid dry without putting a hole in the bilge?

It was even more disconcerting to grind dangerously deep and generously wide and then come back in a week to find yet more styrenepolluted water seeping out of the site. I did not use a moisture meter, but polished those areas again with 80 grit on the orbital and then moved on to a new spot. I did this for weeks in an alternating fashion all over the hull.

When finally, after several days, I saw no more seepage from a site, I went hard on the area with a wire brush and mopped it over and over again with acetone. I did not hose the hull.

Grinding fiberglass creates huge amounts of debris. Don’t skimp on breathing protection. The

yard manager may ask you to tent your boat. The guy painting in the next space would also probably appreciate it. Check the wind direction.

Rather than cut huge sheets of mat and covering whole sections at once, I cut small pieces and laid them on in a patchwork fashion, angling the pieces this way and that, restoring the elevations,

which later kept the fairing labor down.

With smaller pieces I also didn’t have to worry about running out of a batch of resin before I wetted-out a section to my satisfaction. I mixed only small batches, around six ounces of 105/206 WEST system at a time.

I found disposable brushes were the only way to go. Rollers are a nuisance to clean and are not for detail. With brushes and fancy wrist action I could also heavy-up on the resin on a particular target—stroke, poke, pat, drag, twist and twirl. Don’t get too expansive on this, though—if you begin to resemble an orchestra conductor you may draw an audience, amused more than admiring.

Slowly and then rapidly I fell into a rhythm with what I was doing. Applying fiberglass and managing all the elements was suddenly fun, giving the boat a new vitality. Then, with the low spots proud with fully wetted dense glass—as many as five layers of mat could be involved—I went further.

With a burring tool (a plastic spreader will do) I pushed the blade very forcefully against the resinloaded lay-up, creating little steps or ridges, flushing the resin through the complex of fibers and the air bubbles out, after which I smoothed the area by gently dragging the blade upwards, leveling the ridges. The excess resin on the blade was constantly reapplied across the work, and I primped until my wrists reminded me of old tennis days.

A slow hardener gave me maximum work time, and on cloudy days, I set construction work lights on the site. I also primped periodically right up to the initial stages of the set. The next day when the work was rock hard, the orbital sander dispatched what lumps, bumps and spikes remained, after which I wiped the site with acetone and painted on a very slightly thickened coat of resin and called that my barrier coat. Later I scuffed it all yet again and painted on another thin coat of resin and called that my tie coat to the bottom paint. Just before it cooked I rolled on the first coat of bottom paint.

[A word of warning: sunlight in the yard was not always uniform across the hull, and the resin didn’t get tacky and ready for bottom paint everywhere at the same time. As I painted, where the resin was fresh it absorbed the bottom paint and cooked to a hard, smooth, shiny surface. Where the surface was beyond tacky—too dry— the tie coat effect was lost somewhat.]

The fixed areas are now all carrying heavily cross-linked glass and a superior, less permeable epoxy resin—a vast improvement over the original polyester and production-efficient layup. One more haulout in two years’ time will take care of the few remaining bad spots on the right side of the hull, check previous work and draw the curtain closed on the “Busting Blisters” drama.

What I learned was this—don’t pass up a good boat buy because of blisters—use them as a bargaining chip. Also don’t let ugly blisters diminish the value of the boat you now own. Fix ‘em! We’re not talking rocket science here. If you’re curious about fixing blisters yourself and suspicious that it might be fun, chances are you’ll probably do a heck of a job of it. s

Precut pieces of glass kept in a bag made the layup process much faster and easier

As the hull dries from the haulout, bumps, breaks or small wet spots may begin to appear—the proverbial tip of the iceberg

A variety of issues, some caused by previous repairs: the white fringes surrounding the excavated areas are rotten fiberglass

Boatyards want to see debris-catching grinders, so I connected this unit to an 8 amp Shop Vac type vacuum; the bigger the vacuum, the better the results

Coming back the next day after grinding and finding new seepage was discouraging; here fluid is leaking from behind an old Bondo-like body patch

Get as much resin on the target as will hang, and flip the brush over and over quickly to minimize dripping; cover your shoes, don’t cheat and wet each layer of cloth thoroughly before adding another

My old Skil grinder was right for work in small areas, but without a dust catcher it’s not welcome by yard managers

Crossing small pieces seems haphazard, but this filled in low spots and resulted in a flatter surface and less fairing

Long overlapping strips built a fullness back into the hull that was lost when I ground down a wide, narrow area of suspicious laminate.

Pressing the mat forcefully into place with a burring tool pushed it hard against the hull, causing any trapped air to bubble out

Gently dragging the resin upward—punch and drag, constantly lifting, smoothing— kept resin on the target and made for easy fairing