As with many older Westerly boats, there is a likelyhood that the
hull will be wet and possibly suffering from osmosis. On Forethought
the surveyor commentoed on how damp the hull was without osmosis. He
missed several patches of blisters with his scraped off
areas by about 20cm. Worst was at the waterline where the weed
had built up.
Here is the rudder after some years in the water : Gelshielded but
not dried before treatment , The pox are made most visible by the
application of white antifoul over blue antifouling and then scraping
the surface to reveal bumps in the blue layer. On another boat I
have seen, the whole of the hull had regular bumps on it - related to
the weave of the woven mat used in the layup.
Actually when this antifouling was scraped off, the rudder was covered in wet blisters but these were between two layers of Gelshield. Strange ! (May 2009)
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