Merlin had not been polished or waxed for some time before I bought him!!!
The boat is in its original gelcoat but there are clearly some minor repairs as one would expect on a 30 year old boat.
For the last 12 years Merlin has spent the summer months based in a tidal, brown water estuary which dries out twice daily and he is hauled out October to March.
So far I have applied Y10 gelcoat cleaner to the starboard side and starbrite hull cleaner to the port side. I now have no yellow staining.
Both sides have been polished (3 passes) with ‘3m perfect it medium cutting compound and wax’ on a random orbital polisher at about 1800 rpm.
Whilst there are some great improvements, the gelcoat is clearly badly stained as well as heavily oxidised.
This is the port side and you can see where i am at and what it was like before. Since this photo was taken I have finished this side and it has oxidised over again (in one day) but not so heavily. This is the sunny side of the boat (facing due south)!
This is what I call the midships mess. Those runs are absolutely flat and are stains in the gelcoat. The gelcoat is in good condition apart from the runs. To give you an indication of shine depth, the reflected boat is about 10 feet away.
This is the starboard side and again these runs are stains in the gelcoat.
Y10 or starbrite is not touching the staining. I tried another oxalic acid based gelcoat cleaner gel today on test patches and it made no difference after 45 minutes.
What do I do now?
My thoughts are to use a deep cleaner say international super cleaner to take off the wax. Then try an oxalic acid gelcoat cleaner to see if that works?
Before I used both gelcoat cleaners before I had washed the boat in boat shampoo with wax. Would that wax be inhibiting the gelcoat cleaners.
1:Wet sand the hull with 800grit
2:Wet sand hull with 1000grit
3:Buff with a wool pad polisher like the Makita 9227C, using 3M Super Duty cutting compound
4:Buff again with 3M Finesse-it
5:Wax 3M Marine Ultra Performance Paste Wax.
Depending on the oxidation levels, you may not need to wet sand at all. Start with the Cutting compound first, in a small area,then polish and wax. If that works, do the rest of the hull.
I worked in a boat yard for a few years and this is how we did it. It’s hard work.
As I’ve mentioned before, I use cheap toilet bowl cleaner. Spray on, wait 10 minutes and hose off. All stains disappear.
Joe Valinoti
S/V iL Gatto NS30U #221
Sea Harbour YC
Oriental, NC USA
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Yup, keeping our sanity is paramount. Regarding your hull stains, both Rick and Joe are correct. Rick is/was a pro in this regard and I’ll bet that his correct method is a lot of work and does, indeed, produce lovely results.
Joe is right because he sprayed a few quid worth of “Bowl-Aid” or some such toilet cleaner on his hull and, lo and behold, it worked (and still does). FWIW, I’d start with Joe’s “10 minutes to a flawless hull” approach and … if you are not satisfied, give it some welly and go for the gusto (Rick’s method).
Incidentally, Joe’s method is far from the first time that household cleaners have been used to achieve all kinds of interesting results with our boats.
JOY liquid dish detergent is a wonderful and cheap sail slide lubricant. Easy-Off oven cleaner is great for removal of old lettering and boat names.Those are two that come to mind.
