Tom owns a 24’ SeaHunter with a stunning dark blue hull. As other boat owners understand with colored hulls, they can look amazing, but also suffer terribly from sun damage and easily show oxidization. Tom wanted a better solution than traditional buff and wax. He began searching on The Hull Truth for a gelcoat ceramic coating to protect his boat.
- Brand:
- SeaHunter
- Length:
- 24'
- Location:
- Islamorada, FL
Maintaining the shine and color of your hull is challenging especially when you are dealing with the sun exposure and temperatures as we experience in South Florida.
To date, most boat owners have resorted to the traditional approach to buff and wax their boat for protection. However, as most of you already know, wax will only last a few months before wax must be reapplied.
This was the problem Tom continued to face. He takes great pride in his boat and wants to keep up the appearance. He mentioned to us that in the past, he needed the boat to be acid washed and wet sanded. In both of those instances, the boat looked amazing right afterwards, but oxidization began to show in just a few months.
Tom knew there was a better way. He began to search online for alternatives to protect his boat. And, he came across Glidecoat and our gelcoat ceramic coating to protect his investment from the harsh marine conditions in South Florida.
Upon arriving at the boat, the port side had heavy oxidization on the hull including significant scratches along both sides from normal use and previous maintenance work.
Before starting any restoration work, we utilize a gloss meter to provide us with a numerical measurement of the gloss of the surface. A factory new boat with gelcoat hull will register gloss meter readings from 82 - 88.
On areas of the boat with the heavy oxidization, we had gloss meter readings as low as 9.7. To combat the heavy oxidization on the surface, we needed complete multiple restoration steps including the use of heavy compound and wool pad to cut into the surface and repair the surface.
During the restoration process, you could see signs the gel coat was wearing thin in areas of the hull. This is one of the advantages with our ceramic coating as once we have completed the restoration process, our ceramic coating will lock in the surface. This prevents boat owners from continually cutting into the gel coat.
Now comes the real transformation.
At this point, we have finished the restoration process to bring back the shine and color of the hull. Before applying our gelcoat ceramic coating, we use Surface Wipe, a denatured alcohol to sterilize the surface and ensure all contaminants are removed from the surface.
With the surface now fully prepared and consistent we started the gel coat ceramic coating application.
Applying two (2) coats of our gelcoat ceramic coating, the coating will fill in all of the pores of the surface and after 8 hours of curing time, will create a protective barrier on the hull to prevent oxidization and hard water marks.
After the curing process, the hull of the boat will look like glass!
