Mary,
...does anybody know what product would be best to put on the rotomolded plastic boats like the Wave and the Getaway to make them shiny and to repel road tar and generally make them easier to wash.
Would products like Vertglas or 303 work on plastic, even though there aren't any pores to seal? Rick says wax might work, but the boat would be slower.
Anybody have any ideas? I want my Wave to be shiny!
Or at least clean.
Either of these two products should work for you. We started building fiberglass whitewater canoes and kayaks in the mid 1950s. The boats were stored outside and after the first season we noticed they all had faded from sun exposure. It got progressively worse when we moved to Colorado because we then spent the summers running rivers at high altitude so by seasons end all the boats had faded even more, and worse the bottoms received a brutal beating from paddling thru younger boulder fields. A general way to think of the various agents that give fiberglass or carbon fiber their stiffness is to consider them all plastics and to include rotomoulded products in that category also. Because there are many different methods used it's risky to say definitively that something will always work. So with that in mind, we never manufactured using roto moulding because of the added weight and expensive tooling. But we did apply both Verglas and 303 to the rotomoulded boats of those who enrolled in our seminars. If I was you I'd order a small amount and try it. Using either of these (or several others similar to them) will give you additional benfits that no one has yet mentioned. First, our seminar clients were mostly serious whitewater competitors and they wanted to produce more speed for the same amount of energy expended. If you prepare your hull bottoms thoroughly, as I've suggested earlier in this thread, and apply these types of products, your hulls will slice thru the water more efficiently than without it.
JAKE----Serious racers like yourself may want to consider doing what I said I did to my boat-flip it over and coat the bottoms. And coat your rudders and the exposed part of your dagger boards also. After several summers of testing we used 303 on hull bottoms for competitive events, because it gave us faster boats. That's not a knock on other products. It's a reality that sailors will have a harder time flipping their boat than a kayaker, so they might elect another option as more feasible. Jake I did not take offense. I'm particualr on being told something is for certain, when the example offered in support falls short. I listened to what you said and I would still make the same point; it seems reasonable that a nonskid horizontal surface may produce a different response than a vertical smooth surface. I've put Vertglas it on plenty of boats, but I never stood on a vertical surface with Vertglas on it, and therefore I can't make a definitive statement. I can say, boat decks have always, for lack of a better word, felt somewhat more slippery after being coated than prior to coating. For my part I don't know what the response will be, because I have not yet put Vertglas on my hulls and trapped out on them on a windy day. My reply to you was you haven't sailed on Verted hulls either. I did caution folks as to my experience with 303. You may have other info you haven't mentioned, but with what we've said, does my reasoning at least make sense to you?
MIKE----For saliors like youself who find themselves hauling their boats up on beaches without cat trax, another attribute of these products is, to some degree they help prevent scratching the hull bottoms. It is highly unlikely that the gel coat on any boat is uniform in thickness and the bottoms may have areas that are thinner than desired. Sliding over sand on a regular basis will wear the already thin gel coat thinner. For this purpose Vertglas was better for protecting our hulls. When ran heavy boulder gardens on expeditionary streams in South America we didn't care about speed and "painted" our hulls heavily with Vertglass type products.
GREG----Earlier I mentioned the various parts of the boat I cover with these type products. For me the most important unit on my boat is my carbon mast because it's the most expense. I gather from listening to this forum, most sailors probably won't consider dealing with drag as very important. Nonetheless reducing water drag is a big factor in going fast. However there is plenty of drag aloft also. Even a lonely forestay creates a know amount of drag. Larger objects create a lot more. If it was my boat, I'd coat the mast.
MARY----Another effect of this stuff is that it really does a good job of protecting your boat from dirt and grim. This is because it helps to seal the surface, denying particles a foothold, so to speak. So If I were you and I was going to haul my boat up north for the summer I'd coat the boat before I left. You may arrive at you're destination with road grim on your boat but it will hose off much more readily. Ric is correct regarding wax. I've already commented on the failures of wax. To summarize: wax is hydrophillic, when instead hydrophobic characteristics are far more desirable. This means wax attracts water, hangs onto; with the net effect that it increases drag on the boat. The products we are discussing repel water in varying degress, and in so doing they reduce drag. The other point to make is, wax breaks down very, very rapidly when exposed to two elements in particular, sun and water. Minnesota has long been involved in composite research and here they always seem to be tinkering with their formulas. I don't know how porous Hobie boats are, but as I said we've used several different formulas on roto moulded boats because it improved performance, by protecting the bottoms from excessive scratching. If it was my boat I'd certainly give it a try.
Longevity. Greg, I'm assuming because you were dissapointed with your ealrier attempt that you followed the directions for Vertglas to a T. If you've put your boat to bed for the winter and cover it with a tarp or store it inside you'll make it through to next fall just fine.
I do want to remind everyone that this stuff is a very good product for the reasons I given above, but it will not stay on indefinitely. That's dependent upon the amount of exposure to sunlight, water friction moving over the hulls, and how much the hulls are hauled over the ground. I've been sailing five or six days a week so I don't expect my hulls to stay covered indefinitely. That's why I mentioned that every couple weeks I give the hulls a quick ten minute rubdown.
I'm not suggesting other people follow my routine, or that I have a favorite product. I'm merely trying to enlarge your level of awarness so you can make better decisions based upon your own circumstances.
Hope this helps.
Daniel
