Sri Lanka's First Ever Boatshow

[Watchman]

hey Ripper,

since you're into boats, i have a quick question.

There's this rundown boat that's in the process of being built up. The entire hull was repainted on the outside and inside. And i have heard a lot that if the bottom of the hull isnt smooth enough the boat suffers from a lot o friction from the water. Curently the boat was painted and normal car laquor was applied on the sides and top, but we were unable to spray the laquor on the bottom since its kinda sitting on its bottom right now. Do we need to laquor the bottom too? or is there something more appropriate/specialized for boats?

[Ripper]

hey Ripper,

since you're into boats, i have a quick question.

There's this rundown boat that's in the process of being built up. The entire hull was repainted on the outside and inside. And i have heard a lot that if the bottom of the hull isnt smooth enough the boat suffers from a lot o friction from the water. Curently the boat was painted and normal car laquor was applied on the sides and top, but we were unable to spray the laquor on the bottom since its kinda sitting on its bottom right now. Do we need to laquor the bottom too? or is there something more appropriate/specialized for boats?

you do get marine paint that's more hardier than regular paint and is designed for this purpose... I think rainbowpages had some contacts for vendors...

Some people tend to mix graphite with epoxy and apply it to the bottoms of their hulls, especially kayakers to help them "slip" better and be a bit more resistant to scrapes...

The only hitch with this is that graphite enrich epoxy doesn't take paint or anything of the sort on it so it has to be the last thing you put on the boat

... Cos i think paint wont stick to this mix..

If your're doing this do it only to the hull areas that sit below the water line cos it'll be a matte black sorta finish...

You can use a random orbital sander to smoothen out the graphite-epoxy (very messy affair since there's a lot of dust involved) and apply more coatings if necessary...

IMO this would be the best coating for the bottom that will have to be able to take a few dings and scrapes

btw... i'm assuming your boat is either a fiberglass one or a fibre coated wooden boat

http://boatbuildercentral.com/

they have some good info on supplies and stuff...

http://www.boatus.com/boattech/BottomLine.htm

importance of a bottom in good shape

[Watchman]

thanks for the info!

The links seem quite useful! still going through them though...

But not quite sure on how big a fan my father will be about painting the shiny white hull black:D

And yes, the hull is a fiberglass one. Its pretty old, i think a good 10 years or older...needed a bit of fiber work on the inside but the outer hull was pretty smooth (at least so i was told)

[xXx]

i myself is a bit of a boating fan so dilli i was just wondering where you'll be using your boat? and what happend with your jet ski project?

[Ripper]

thanks for the info!

The links seem quite useful! still going through them though...

But not quite sure on how big a fan my father will be about painting the shiny white hull black:D

And yes, the hull is a fiberglass one. Its pretty old, i think a good 10 years or older...needed a bit of fiber work on the inside but the outer hull was pretty smooth (at least so i was told)

in that case... a proper bottom coat is the best...

If Velo is around he can give you more tips of fiberglass, gelcoats etc etc...

The black thing is mostly done by kayakers since those things have to take a lot of abuse

[Watchman]

@ripper: thanks again. the inside of the hulll had in fact come with some cracks, but my father's been able to fix it up with some fiver at home... i havent personally been that involved n the boat project, since i was away at the start of it.. but it's going quite well, i'll share some pics once its done

@xXx: the jetski's sitting at home now collecting dust.. work is nearly complete (need a few parts which are still in backorder at the manufacturer), and since the new project's taken priority, haven't been able to take the jetski out since i got here.. so far we've been going to bolgoda, since thats probably the only non-security-restricted inland waterbody close to colombo.