The bottom of my boat was very badly neglected and most of the bottom paint had come off by the time I got the boat to the yard. There were small holes going through to the fiberglass all over the bottom. These were not blisters where water penetrated the layers underneath the fiberglass. Instead, they were small holes that came were made from barnacles attached to the hull during the first bottom cleaning after four plus years of neglect. That was good news because I would not have to grind into the fiberglass and repair before painting.
When the boat came off the water it was pressure washed and then set up on blocks. The bottom had the small gouges I mentioned and also other growth that made the surface rough. I decided that the first step would be to sand all the bottom paint off and make the bottom as smooth as possible. For one person this was a lot of work. The bottom paint did not come off easily. Every inch of the bottom had to be painstakingly sanded until the bottom paint was completely removed. I wanted to remove the anti-fouling paint completely so that I could put on a barrier coat before painting with anti-fouling paint.
The next step was to take epoxy putty and fill in some of the larger holes in the hull and areas where there were a lot of small holes in the same area. Once that was done, it was time to start laying on the barrier coat. We will get to that in the next post.
