Vinylester Skin Coat ?

[BillD]

Many hull builders offer "vinylester skin coat" as an option for $500-$1,000.

Why is vinylester skin coat offered as an "option" over plain old white gel coat?

What are the advantages over a 20-30 year hull life expectancy?

Is it worth the "seemingly" small up charge considering the overall cost of a new build?

 

[Blitzen]

Bill the vinyl ester offers better protection against blistering.A few of the builders I did deliveries for would not offer a guarantee against blistering even though they used VE skin coat, unless they prepped the bottom with an epoxy barrier coat before leaving the factory.
I would save the money on the VE and use it towards a good barrier coating job as the epoxy is still better than the VE. But if you have the money do both for the ultimate protection.

 

[F/V First Team]

Where are you all getting these blisters from? I've never encountered a single one from the boats we've done.

Just sayin'

Maybe it is directly related to the amount of care taken in casting the pieces?

 

[Sailorgp]

All you've ever wanted to know about blisters...


Blister & Laminate Hydrolysis in Fiberglass Boat Hulls

 

[F/V First Team]

I think you missed the point of my comment...

 

[Sailorgp]

If you've built a lot of boats and never had a single blister...you need to share your methods with Hinkley, Bertam, Atlantic Boat etc. My experience is that a builder can build 25 boats without blisters but the 26th hull will blister. For 30 years no one has known the real cause. The resin? the method of laminating? the mix? the temperature? No one has reallly pinned down the cause of osmotic blistering. I've done four barrier coat jobs (my own boats) over the last 30+ years. Each boat had a varying degree of blisters. The worst (Cape Dory sailboat) required total removal of the gelcoat. I would sand in the fall, dry out over the winter, and barrier coat in the spring. I always used a pure epoxy resin (system 3 is my choice) followed by a couple coats of Interprotect as a paint primer, then ablative bottom paint. The blisters I dealt with were as small as 1/8" on two of the hulls and larger 1/2" on the worst hull. All the jobs were successful.
Bottom line is that I totally agree with everything Blitzen stated in his post