Gelcoat application and finishing

[bab5871]

I've been working on and off on my Sunfish since I got it. Needed to repair a few sections of gelcoat on the bottom, so sanding and many applications of gelcoat, and more sanding etc. I finally decided to do the back 1/5th of the bottom/sides with a roller just to get some extra coating back there. It's currently got that little bit of orange peel texture to it, and honestly..... I really like it. It's still smooth overall, obviously textured... but I'm seriously considering doing the rest of the bottom the same way and being done with it...

Obviously this would affect speed I'd imagine... but I don't think I'm really concerned about that. Any other reason I couldn't or shouldn't do this aside from the obvious "it doesn't look good" or something?

 

[norcalsail]

I'm going to go over some thin spots on the hull of my recently acquired '69 Sunfish with gel coat, so I am interested in any recommendations on this post.

 

[bab5871]

Example of the quick work for the back of mine. This was to cover some thin spots before her first outing.

 

[LVW]

I've been working on and off on my Sunfish since I got it. Needed to repair a few sections of gelcoat on the bottom, so sanding and many applications of gelcoat...

Obviously this would affect speed I'd imagine... but I don't think I'm really concerned about that. Any other reason I couldn't or shouldn't do this aside from the obvious "it doesn't look good" or something?

If you've ever tried to tow anything behind your Sunfish, you'd know that a drag of anything affects speed and ability.

 

[Pippins]

Believe it or not the surface finish that far aft probably isn't going to effect your speed. The boundary layer grows progressively thicker and by that point on the hull is thick enough to fully engulf the rough paint. Most your benifits in fairing a boat are going to come from where the water first meets the boat.

On towing with a sunfish, yeah it's not really doable, atleast up wind. The center board on a sunfish is marginal in size to begin with and anything slows you down makes it worse. In the age of sail, boats that had to tow (most common examples fishing boats designed as trawlers), had very large center boards to allow progress to windward under load.