Jason Cosler on 12/10/101 6:52 AM said:

the thoery about going from dry sailing to wet may be true. my express was dry sailed in santa cruz until i bought it in 7/00. now it is wet sailed in lake tahoe 6 months out of the year and when i pulled it last month i noticed the blister problem.I have a patch of the tiny ones as well as about 20 that are the diameter of a pencil eraser. i too would appreciate any advice on repair

rob

>>What I originally thought was simply the bottom paint (Baltoplate) blistering due to a rushed paint job last spring turns out to be the unthinkable: gelcoat blisters. Hundreds of very tiny ones (about the size of a pin head) in several locations from bow to stern. The thing is, they're not (at this point, I guess) traditional gelcoat blisters. Which means thay don't go all the way to the laminate. In fact, I took some sand paper to a few yesterday and it looks like a slightly different color second layer of gelcoat is underneath (looks teal). Is this the "fine rash" Terry Alsberg talks about in his lecture?

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>>The opinion of the boat yard is that the outer-most layer of gelcoat may have been allowed to set up for too long. Or an additive may be to blame (this is consistent with what I've been reading on the internet). My point was: Why would it start blistering now? Change of climate or the disgusting water in Baltimore's Inner Harbor? The yard said it looked like blistering that would result if a boat was not wet-sailed for most of its life and then kept in the water for long periods all of a sudden. But I'm pretty sure she was wet-sailed before I bought her last year (had balto-plate on it then).

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>>So...anyone else have this ploblem? I fear I'm looking at a second mortage to fix it...

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