Making fiberglass gleam

IT WAS WITH no small degree of astonishment that I recently learned how I should have been making my fiberglass gleam during all these long years of boat ownership. It was thanks to a four-page article in the latest issue of America’s largest-circulation boating magazine, BoatU.S. magazine, that I learned how I was supposed to have done it.

I read that article through from beginning to end with a growing sense of shame and disillusionment.  I ended up confessing to the cat, who could sense my distress:  “I am guilty, guilty as charged.  I have never ever made my fiberglass gleam like this. I am a failure, an impostor, and unworthy of boat ownership.”

Let me boil down those four pages for you, so that you won’t repeat my failure.  Making your fiberglass gleam is apparently not just a matter of vanity but a matter of protecting your boat. To do this you should follow these steps:

1.  Remove oxidation from the topsides with a power orbital buffer and oxidation remover.

2.  Remove the oxidation remover.

3.  If the oxidation was severe, remove remaining oxidation with orbital buffer and oxidation remover.

4.  Remove oxidation remover.

5.  Eliminate any stains remaining. Use rubbing compound and a rag. Rub by hand.

6.  Remove rubbing compound.

7.  Polish hull with buffer and a dedicated polish.

8.  Remove polish.

9.  Polish hull again.

10. Remove polish again.

11. Seal the shine in with a thorough coating of paste wax over the whole hull, by hand. Let it dry.

12. Remove paste wax.

13. Apply another coat of paste wax by hand. Let it dry.

14. Remove paste wax.

15. The coup de grace — apply a coat of carnauba wax by hand.

16. Clean off the carnauba wax with a buffer and a microfiber bonnet.

Now, I don’t know how long all this is supposed to take you, but presumably you can get it all done in just one winter because the article then adds that in spring “you should be able to get away with a quick polish and then sealing in the shine.”  And if you can actually bring yourself to use the boat after all this spiffing up, during the sailing season you can renew the shine by giving the gelcoat another carnauba wax job every other week.

Well, let us pause for breath here. As I told the cat, I have never wax polished the hull of any boat I have owned. When fiberglass hulls were invented, the inherent promise was that they would never need any maintenance.  We would be freed from the annual task of rubbing down the topsides and slapping on another coat of paint.  They would simply shine forever, reflecting the rays of the sun and spreading joy and happiness wherever they went.

It wasn’t true, of course.  They got scuffed and battered just like wooden topsides before them, and after a few years we noticed that the gelcoat developed a sort of powder on its surface, and when we complained to the builders they laughed and told us how naive we were.  “One word governs all of boating,” they pointed out. “Entropy. Go look it up.”

I decided then and there that my topsides would have to take their chances in life and I cleverly decided that white was the only color for a hull because oxidized white hulls look better than oxidized hulls of any other color, especially red or blue.

I also learned in later years that when a boat got so badly oxidized that it looked like a moose shedding fur, you could slap on a coat or two of twin-pack polyurethane paint and it would look bright and shiny and brand new for at least seven years to come, and with about a quarter of the effort you’d need to make your fiberglass gleam by applying wax paste and repeating the whole process until Armageddon set you free.

I’m sure the BoatU.S. people think that anybody with my attitude is unfit to own a fiberglass hull, but I don’t really care.  My cat thinks I’m plenty smart, if a little over-emotional.

Today’s Thought

I’m tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. . . . What do you want — an adorable pancreas?
— Jean Kerr, The Snake Has All the Lines

Tailpiece

“Officer, is this the crash victim?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is he badly injured?”
“Well, so-so, sir. Two of the wounds are fatal but the other one’s not so bad.”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

The making of fiberglass

A READER IN WEST VIRGINIA, who says he’s new to boating, wants to know how fiberglass boats are made.  He has already discovered for himself that they’re not made from molded plastic, as he first thought.

Well, where to begin? Let’s stick with the hull.  Most production-run hulls are solid fiberglass built of this laminate: Alternating layers of chopped-strand fiberglass mat at 1.5 ounces to the square yard, and woven glass fiber roving at 24 ounces to the square yard.  These two layers are called a ply, and each ply is about 3/32 inch thick.  All the fiberglass is thoroughly saturated with polyester resin, which also glues the layers together into one solid mass.

This standard laminate weighs about 94 pounds a cubic foot and the glass fibers account for about 35 percent of the total weight.  It’s the glass fibers that add strength and flexibility to the laminate:  polyester resin on its own is not particularly strong and its rigidity tends to make it crack easily.  Together, the fiberglass and the resin combine their best qualities in a boatbuilding material that has stood the test of time.

Now, the glass fabrics most commonly used by boatbuilders are cloth, woven roving, and chopped strand mat.

Ø Cloth is thin and strong. It’s used for sheathing wood or as a finishing layer on a fiberglass laminate because it leaves a smooth finish.  It is not usually used to build up the hull laminates.

Ø Woven roving has a loose weave with a rough finish. It provides strength but is usually topped with cloth or mat to make it fair.

Ø Chopped strand mat comprises short strands of glass fibers laid flat in random fashion and held in place by a sizing that is soluble in the right kind of resin.  It’s the weakest of these three fabrics, but it bonds well.  In repair work, chopped strand mat is the fabric first applied to old fiberglass, to ensure a good strong bond between the old and the new.

In a way, resin and fiberglass are the marine equivalent of bricks made of mud plus straw, or concrete plus steel reinforcing bar.  The resulting product shows characteristics greater than the sum of its components taken separately.

There are many tricks and wrinkles known to those who work with fiberglass on a professional basis, of course, but for beginning sailors in West Virginia, this is about all they need to know for now.

Today’s Thought

The glory of a workman, still more of a master-workman, that he does his work well, ought to be his most precious possession; like the “honour of a soldier,” dearer to him than life.
— Carlyle, Essays: Shooting Niagara

Tailpiece

People who think they know everything seldom seem to realize how much they irritate those of us who actually do.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)      

The benefit of fiberglass

 BOATBUILDERS in the early days of fiberglass could never have imagined how long their products would last. After 15 or 20 years, an old-time boatbuilder could rely on a wooden boat to do the decent thing and rot away into oblivion. But today, 40- or 50-year-old fiberglass boats are still going strong and depressing sales of new boats.

Consequently, there are many bargains to be found among old-fashioned but sound sailboats capable of sailing around the world. Like aging film stars caught off-guard, they may look slightly seedy and down at heel in the glare of the spotlight, but after a good paint job and little body work they’ll be as good as ever.

If you’re young and not too concerned with creature comfort, you can even find old fiberglass boats, capable of crossing oceans, that bear price tags with figures lower than those of many used cars. They naturally won’t offer the comfort and style of newer designs, but the sea doesn’t care about that. The sea respects only seaworthiness, and the design aspects of seaworthiness don’t change as the demands of modern styling and accommodations do.

Size is not the main arbiter of seaworthiness, either. Boats of 20 feet and up regularly cross oceans. The smaller and simpler the boat, the less money you’ll need to make your cruising dreams come true.

Go small. Go young. But go.

Today’s Thought

But there are wanderers o’er Eternity
Whose bark drives on and on, and anchor’d ne’er shall be.
Byron, Childe Harold

Tailpiece

“How do you like your new babysitter, Johnny?”
“I hate her, Mom. If I was bigger I would grab her and bite her on the back of her neck like Dad does.”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)