Cleaning and Polishing the Boot Strip

[Peter Milne]

In years past, I have had difficulty cleaning and polishing the blue boot stripe, which is just above the waterline. It has a cloudy film on it which is very hard to clean.The the lexan port lights on the hull also have a milky film on them which is tough to clean.Any tips or ideas out there on how to make the job easier that you are willing to share??Thanks,Peter MilneS/V Blue Heron

 

[Wright Ellis s/v Whiskey II]

My solution

I just painted over the stripe (and the white gap between it and the ablative bottom paint) with a hard antifoulant paint. Now the slime and barnacles have no place to grow.

 

[jim]

sandpaper

I have just painted the boot stripe on my Hunter 31. In preperation I had to sand it with 220 sandpaper. To my surprise it removed the milky color, however it was still faded compared to the decal stripe near the upper part of the hull. It made me hesitate to paint,but now that it is done it sure adds a new and fresh look. I used Interlux Brightside one part polyurethane, largo blue. Use a good quality bristle brush.