Cleaning Your BoatBy Tami SheltonI don't suggest you do this often, but take your boat down to the local car wash and pressure wash it. Will get the gnarly from between the texture of the trampoline AND the hull decks. This won't get all the stains but it will help. I've used BIZ (with _bleach_!) on the tramp, and Star Brite's Hull Cleaner bleach for the hulls. BIZ is good for sail washing as well, (at least as far as my friend Paul Price was concerned) course if your sails are new and crisp it's probably better to use a real sail wash. And to finish the hulls I and several others around here have been really pleased with Star Brite's Glass Kote. Once the hulls are washed/bleached clean as you can get 'em, instead of wet-sanding, compounding, and/or waxing, you just apply this stuff according to its directions. Even if (especially if) the hulls are oxidised this stuff works to bring out lasting shine, on the order of a year or more between applications. If the hulls are badly oxidised you might have to apply two coats. Wear gloves, it's a polyurethane coating and it'll get all over your hands. Removable with acetone which won't be bad for the gelcoat. But when I applied the second coat 1-1/2 years after the original application (the first app. began to wear in spots) I didn't take off the remainder of the first application. This stuff is great. Around here (marsh & estuarine) there are a lot of tannins in the water which stain hulls something awful. The hull bleach took all that out and the Glass Kote prevented its return. For a year, I'm not kidding. I think the G.K. is same as the polycoats you can get done on cars. (and besides, since it's not wax, seems like it's even a little hydrophilic so you don't have that laminar flow problem ;-). Tami Shelton |
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