I was looking at the posts on the Yahoo Cat18 group and came across a barrier coat discussion where some of the owners thought there was a barrier coat that came with the boat applied at the factory by Catalina Yachts. Comments were that it was grey in color. Does this sound right to anyone?
Catalina 18 Barrier Coat
- Thread starter Ajay73
- Start date
I don't think that the smaller Catalinas came from the factory with an epoxy barrier coat,even as a option. The smaller new boats that I saw and the boats in the sales literature all have white gelcoat bottoms. I cannot picture a Catalina rep at a boat show offering this as a factory option necessary to prevent blisters. It's like saying that the gelcoat they use is crap,thus sending a prospective buyer scurrying off to another boat builder. I think on earlier boats the grey is a primer put on either by the dealer or boat owner. Primers now consist of a chemical make up that chemically etches into the gelcoat and bottom paint chemically bonding them together. More recent boats may have been coated by the dealer or boat owner with epoxy as a barrier and primer when that became"fashionable"and proven to prevent blisters. My boat had some kind of grey primer which the bottom paint refused to stick to. I finally scraped it all off,sanded the bottom,and coated the bottom with Interlux epoxy barrier as a primer for the bottom paint.
Ok,so I finally got a chance to call Catalina today. Before 1988 they did offer as an option 2 coats of epoxy barrier coat done either by the dealer or at the factory. From 1989 to 1999 they used a product from Glidden called Glidden Blister Guard,a vinylester product,grey in color. This was applied in the mold to the bottom only in lieu of the traditional white gelcoat. This was done on boats 22 ft and over. From 1999 on the mold is sprayed with white gelcoat first,then the bottom is sprayed with the Glidden product,then the fiberglass lay-up begins,resulting in an all white hull with the blue boot-stripe,still offering protection from water absorption to the fiberglass lay-up. This is done on all boats.
JA, I read online in some Catalina literature (which I cannot now find) that some kind of a barrier coat was applied between the gelcoat and the layup, just as you found out. I'll keep looking to find this article.