Eves of tape to keep hull dry

This spring I made little eves to keep the rainwater from running down the hull sides and into the blisters that I ground out last fall.

I used a very sticky 2" wide white tape made in Canada and sections of small quarter round. Just the foam type found in Home Depot. I found a very small amount of dampness under one eave so the seal wasn't 100% but very close. Soon we'll put green 3M epoxy filler in the blisters and hopefully they will be very dry.

I submit this as a possible method for others to keep rainwater out of their blisters while sitting outside.

Necessity truly is the mother of invention.

The alternative to doing that eve every year is to move to the opposite corner of the state where we almost never get rain. No worry about runoff over here.

Now if we could only find a way to mix our great weather with your great boating, we'd be all set.

Rain gutters

Works well when you're forced to paint in a light rain too. Keeps water from running down onto the fresh paint. I used the extra wide 3M painters tape. Does tends to get water -logged with a lot of rain though.

SteveH

That blue 3M tape might give you nightmares if the temperature goes below freezing. I saw a boat taped that had the stuff stick like 5200 -- awful. And it was a catamaran, so "twice the fun" getting it off. The boatyard worker, whom I'd never heard swear was muttering something fierce.

Just a head's up. Tape was on the boat less than a week, and it was blasted cold. That's why the delay in painting the hull. It was too cold. Place: south Georgia.

When I was doing a blister job on my Penn Yan and letting it dry out over the winter years ago, I would take the hose every week and wash it down. The moisture in the hull you want to remove is partly liquid styrene. Water mixes with it under pressure when in the water causing the styrene to mix with the water and become a weak styrene solvent that then dissolves more styrene etc. Sitting in the water the pressure causes it to absorb and dilute the styrene out of the resin. Out of the water you don't have that absorption problem so long as you don't have water sitting in your unprotected bilge. It actually found it beneficial to rinse the hull periodically to help it to "dry" out as you really need to rinse as much of that styrene out as possible. As it "dry's more will come to the surface, you would rather get rid of it to help stop the cycle. Since the styrene acts as solvent, you want to get rid of it quicker than rely just on evaporation. Over time, the moisture oozing out of the blisters loses its stink, that's one way you know the hull has "dried" out.

You can have a wet hull with no blisters in the area...just severe hydrolysis and delamination. The top of the outer laminate can be dry...but layers underneath may have large amounts of water in them.

Till you grind, drill, shave, whatever into that void...you'll never know it unless someone pretty good with a moisture meter can do it...that's something I'm not that up on but with as many "misreadings" as I've heard about...not that many are good enough with them to ensure a thick hull is dry all the way through.

Hey Eric, I have m'new anchor! Just need to fix the hydraulics so I can pull it aboard.

I wanted to point out it is "eaves." That cancels the thread creep.

Great tip. Now that we're in the rainy season down here in FL, I'll be using the same idea when swaping-out my house windows.