Conference unifix::sailing

    When the dockmaster moves the boat off the cradle and puts it in
    the water.
    
    When you're asleep in the cabin and you're woken up to the ennervating
    sound "crunch".
    
    Between Sunday night and Saturday morning.
    
    In the Twilight Zone.
    
    The other times are so embarrassing I don't want to go into it.
    
    Ray

    There seem to be as many solutions as there are boats!  However,
    perhaps we can start by emphasizing "what are the professionals
    using?" I have been trying to get a straight answer to this one,
    myself.  I have used the kits, but less than happy with the results.
    However, I am pretty fussy.  Will someone speak up that have used
    spray guns or other advanced approaches. (In spite of somebody's
    comments "don't give our secrets away", it would be of great assistance
    to get a really good solution.  At this point, cost is secondary.)
    

    
    I was over at a boatyard last weekend and saw them using the same
    gelcoat repair kit that you or I would buy at the marine store.
    The secret seems to be a more educated idea of what colors to mix
    to get the best match to the existing gel coat.  For large repairs
    they do spray gelcoat thinned with acetone but the color matching
    is done with the same pigments.  That followed by lots of wet sanding
    and compounding is pretty much it.  Unless a boat is plain white
    a good color match is impossible.  For a large repair, the boat
    usually gets repainted.  For a boat that's been Awlgripped, the
    repainted area is always visible.  The best that can be done is
    to tape the repainted area off neatly.  The real secret is to buy
    a white boat or a wooden boat that gets repainted every year anyway.
    
    - gene

    I had a fairly extensive amount of topsides repair done to my '83
    C + C this year.  The guys doing the repair ordered gelcoat from
    C + C.  It matches perfectly, and it's "smoke white," far removed
    from a perfect white.  Sometimes it seems it's at least a little
    bit of luck.  The guys doing the work wanted to do the patching
    with gelcoat then respray the entire boat.  I opted to go with the
    gelcoat repair to keep the damage within the limits of my deductible.
    They slopped on fairly extensive amounts of gelcoat and did just
    like Gene suggested.  Sand, sand, sand.  

    Re  .3      > buy a white or wooden boat
    
    
         How true, once tried to match gelcoat on a bright yellow. What
    a nightmare, ended up painting it afterwards.
    
    
    john

    There is a video tape on the market entitled something like 'Fiberglass
    repair..two volumes...one goes into small to big cosmetic fixes...the
    second into to major structural fixes.....
    
    Tape emphasizes the color matching issue...seems that gelcoat darkens
    with age..if you match color of patching material to current hull
    color, overtime as new gelcoat darkens it will be darker than the rest.
    Supposedly the trick is to match to the original out of the mold hull
    color, how you do that I don't know...
    
    Emphasis of color matching is followed by a pitch for the authors
    color-matched gelcoat kits for most boats..Haven't tried any of it yet.
    
    For me the tape was excellent in giving tips of the prep and
    application of gelcoat repair. Production quality of tape, editing,
    etc. leaves alot to be desired but content is good.
    
    
    Most of my dings have come from, while my slipmate was off on cruises,
    the marina would put a transient boat in whose beam along with mine
    equalled the distance between finger piers. Usually these were power
    boats with aluminum rub rails whose screws were all about a half turn
    out. Results in several parallel stripes of my hull and many four
    letter words for the marina manager!!!! All tghis even with two or
    three fenders out!!