1995 Deck Blisters

LAWilliams

Active Member
After removing the spars and padding off the deck off our 95 , and washing down the deck we discovered gelcoat blisters around the mast step (where the front spar pad was located) and inside the cockpit. Are these serious enough to warrant grinding out, filling and touching up with gelcoat or just leave them alone? It is pretty obvious to us that both areas were staying wet from the old deck pad and the cockpit holding water. Let us know how you would attack this issue. Thanks
 

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Lots of great articles online by searing "gelcoat blisters". That is a tough call if I would fix them, depending on the amount, and time I have. If you are only sailing sporadically, then I would probably leave them alone, try to keep the area as dry as possible. It's hard to maintain or replicate the texture of the deck, the smooth areas are a lot easier, not to mention trying to match the color of the gelcoat to avoid having it look like a repair. Interesting that a Laser would develop blisters on top of the deck, don't think I have seen that before.
 
Lots of great articles online by searing "gelcoat blisters". That is a tough call if I would fix them, depending on the amount, and time I have. If you are only sailing sporadically, then I would probably leave them alone, try to keep the area as dry as possible. It's hard to maintain or replicate the texture of the deck, the smooth areas are a lot easier, not to mention trying to match the color of the gelcoat to avoid having it look like a repair. Interesting that a Laser would develop blisters on top of the deck, don't think I have seen that before.
Thank you for your feedback
 
If the hull doesn't leak, and on a boat that old, I would forget about fixing those blisters.
 

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