Blisters, Questions, Alternatives, What to Do....

Today was despair and hope all mixed together.  Ultimately, the news on the bottom is pretty dire.  After the sodablaster guy came to do some test spots, he frowned and said if it was his boat, he'd have it peeled and start over.

A few of the blisters are under the barrier coat and the only real way to get them fixed once and for all is to peel the bottom, let the boat sit out of the water for as long as several months until the moisture has a chance to work its way out and then barrier coat and bottom paint. 

BUT we're commuter cruisers who have 5 months left in this winter's cruising season.  We could get hit by a Mack Truck this summer and never get to go cruising again.  SO .. we're evaluating options.....

Option 1:  Have the boat sodablasted on Monday realizing that taking it back to the barrier coat and individually fixing the blisters under the barrier coat is only a temporary solution.   Then we'd simply add bottom paint, splash the boat and go cruising this winter as planned..... 

Option 2:  Do it right, have it peeled down to bare fiberglass, let it sit out for however many months it takes to get the moisture readings down to "normal" then start over and barrier coat and bottom paint.  Positives to this approach is it would solve the problem once and for all.  Negatives are that we could get hit by Mack Trucks in the meantime and never get to cruise the boat again...  

Here's a sodablasted test section going down to the barrier coat and showing a blister between the barrier coat and gelcoat ... but there's only a couple ... here...

Here's a sodablasted section with NO blisters between the barrier coat and gel coat ... home free....

But here's the keel with lots of little blisters between the barrier coat and gel coat.  Hmmmm... not so good.   :( 

Our paint guy is coming tomorrow with a moisture meter to test the sodablasted spots and see what the moisture content is.  Then we could decide to leave the boat sit out, sodablasted until late December when we'd have it prepped and painted for our return and go cruising on schedule in January. 

Then we could take our time, after buying ourselves a year or two and decide what we want to do.   Leaving the boat on the hard here in the summer is pretty exposed to hurricanes and not ideal, maybe there's a more inland location we should consider.  The only real question is the blister problem going to be exasperated and cost even more to correct if we simply bandaid it now. 

What to do, what do to.... if we don't fix it correctly now, we'll just end up spending more money to fix it later.  But if we fix it now, we'll lose our cruising winter ... and I guess we'd have to go back to Illinois and endure a midwest winter...    :(  

Lots of questions at this point, not alot of answers.  BUT life is good, we have a boat, we can go cruising, we have options and we will figure this out! 

GO CRUISING!  We'll see......