Busting Blisters

I knew my Cape Carib 33 had bad blisters before we hauled it for survey, but I bought it anyway. You know, of course, it was the only boat out there. Six months later when I had time, I hauled it and with ice pick, chisel and mallet I struck at all the swollen spots and hemorrhaging breaks in the gelcoat. One of them spit out some disgusting vinegary stuff. There were an awful lot of them all over the port side of the hull, and the starboard side also had a few. The consequences of my choice in boats suddenly hit me in the stomach.

“My boat could be dissolving!” I laughed out loud to myself. “Is the decay centered on the bumps and cracks in the gelcoat and grinding those areas will take the problem away, or is this boat just an old bag of water like the one my dad hung on the front of his Dodge?”