Hull blisters are hard to repair.
It sounds like a boating horror story. It all begins with that shiny surface coat called gelcoat, which is a semi-permeable polyester that allows some water to pass through. Eventually, chemicals in the fiberglass laminate pull more water in, then more. The water mixes with the chemicals in both the gelcoat and the fiberglass laminate to form a molecule too large to escape. A bubble forms. The pressure in the bubble is higher than the pressure behind a champagne cork, and what squirts out is acid.
Instructions
1. Set the point of a chisel or screwdriver in the middle of the dome. Stand off to one side and tap the chisel with a hammer until the bubble pops. Wear safety glasses and rubber gloves at a minimum; a rubber apron is helpful, too.
2. Grind the open blister down with a disk grinder and a 36-grit disk to leave a shallow depression to remove any damaged fiberglass laminate beneath the former bubble. Tap the fiberglass around the open blister with the handle of a screwdriver, listening for dull sounds indicating where the laminate has suffered damage, and mark those locations.
3. Flush the blister and the ground area. Scrub it with hot water and tri-sodium phosphate--available at farmer's cooperatives--to remove every bit of the bubble's contents and prevent a recurrence of the blister. Rinse the area thoroughly and allow it to dry as long as possible. Don't finish the repair yet, if the boat's being laid up for the winter.
4. Scrub the depression with a clean rag dipped in acetone when it's time to complete the repair. Paint a bit of unthickened epoxy resin into the whole depression with an acid brush. Cut some disks the size of the depression from a piece of fiberglass cloth and lay one into the epoxy, working it in with the tips of the brush's bristles; repeat the process until you've built up the surface, and then paint the surface with more epoxy, at least two coats that extend an inch past the repair.
5. Allow the epoxy to cure for 24 hours and scrub it with a scrubbing pad to remove the white film that's built up. Use a palm sander to feather the edges of the repair into the level of the hull. Paint the repair and wax it with automotive paste wax.
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