Attached is a photo of the rudder on a boat we recently acquired, prior to disassembly for reconstruction. The boat is a 1984, and has always been in the Great Lakes. If you tear your eyes away from the badly delaminated skin and foam core for the moment, you can see that the top layer of bottom paint is flaking off from the layer underneath. The boat has not been in the water since 2016. I don't know when the bottom was last painted, but the last bottom paint is black and the flakes are extremely thin and somewhat brittle. It is definitely not an ablative type paint. When it flakes off, what appears below it (not readily seen in the photo) is bright copper color. Prior to having pieces start to flake off, I would have thought the black was VC17 but I've used VC17 for many years and have never seen it flake like what is happening here. Many of the flakes come off in large pieces of 3 - 4 inches. It seems there was either incompatibility with the previous paint, poor prep, or???
While the rudder had very obvious issues, I don't really notice any areas on the rest of the hull that are peeling presently, but I suspect given the right provocation it may occur elsewhere. I am inclined at the end of the season to sand the top layer off and start over from there but wondering if anyone has experience that might indicate a cause so I can plan a proper solution?
Thanks,
Scott
While the rudder had very obvious issues, I don't really notice any areas on the rest of the hull that are peeling presently, but I suspect given the right provocation it may occur elsewhere. I am inclined at the end of the season to sand the top layer off and start over from there but wondering if anyone has experience that might indicate a cause so I can plan a proper solution?
Thanks,
Scott