Rob_L
Member
Last year my wife and I purchased a 1991 Nimble Vagabond. The Vagabond is a small (20ft) Ted Brewer designed "pocket trawler." We keep the boat on a trailer at the house and pull it to one of several large lakes in South Carolina or on the SC/GA border. After almost 40 years of sailing, I'm really enjoying a more relaxed cruising style.
The boat has off-white topsides and what I call Hunter Green (a dark green) gel-coat on the hull. The previous owner had the boat buffed out and polished prior to listing it and a decent job was done. There are few, if any, scratches on the hull and everything is very fair and smooth. The issue is that, as you would expect with a 22 year old boat with dark gel-coat in the South, there is uneven fading in the substrate of the hull gel-coat (light colors are much more forgiving in this regard).
Searching and reading on the subject, it seems that there’s not much that can be done about the substrate fading (as opposed to surface oxidization) other than refinishing in some manner. The options range from thorough sanding and de-waxing before having new gel-coat professionally applied (might cost as much as the boat is worth!) to prepping and painting with 100% acrylic exterior house paint (quite a subculture advocating this on the web) and everything in between. My only experience with DIY boat painting was some years back when I repainted the hull and topsides on an aluminum StarCraft inboard using one-part polyurethane “enamel” (in quotes, because I’ve read articles by a couple of chemists who say polyurethane is not really an enamel), foam rollers and brushes. I was very pleased with the results – the paint job looked nice and was very hard and durable.
Now – the WWYD part. What would you do and why. The bottom (below the waterline) still has good antifouling paint on it and I do not plan to address that right now). Keep in mind that this is a trailerable boat and I don’t have the resources to have gel-coat professionally applied. Thanks in advance for sharing your knowledge and experience.
Rob
The boat has off-white topsides and what I call Hunter Green (a dark green) gel-coat on the hull. The previous owner had the boat buffed out and polished prior to listing it and a decent job was done. There are few, if any, scratches on the hull and everything is very fair and smooth. The issue is that, as you would expect with a 22 year old boat with dark gel-coat in the South, there is uneven fading in the substrate of the hull gel-coat (light colors are much more forgiving in this regard).
Searching and reading on the subject, it seems that there’s not much that can be done about the substrate fading (as opposed to surface oxidization) other than refinishing in some manner. The options range from thorough sanding and de-waxing before having new gel-coat professionally applied (might cost as much as the boat is worth!) to prepping and painting with 100% acrylic exterior house paint (quite a subculture advocating this on the web) and everything in between. My only experience with DIY boat painting was some years back when I repainted the hull and topsides on an aluminum StarCraft inboard using one-part polyurethane “enamel” (in quotes, because I’ve read articles by a couple of chemists who say polyurethane is not really an enamel), foam rollers and brushes. I was very pleased with the results – the paint job looked nice and was very hard and durable.
Now – the WWYD part. What would you do and why. The bottom (below the waterline) still has good antifouling paint on it and I do not plan to address that right now). Keep in mind that this is a trailerable boat and I don’t have the resources to have gel-coat professionally applied. Thanks in advance for sharing your knowledge and experience.
Rob
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