Hello from New Zealand, We are a 40ft aluminium sailboat called Wyndeavor. We’ve sailed from the Pacific Northwest to New Zealand with our two kids and have recently put our boat on the market. The paint on our boat was chipping terribly so we decided to go with bare aluminium in order to help the boat sell (low maintenance). We recently had the boat sandblasted and are not too happy with the outcome. We have covered most of the deck with a nonskid product (Treadgrip) but the rest of the deck and hull to the waterline are bare. The bare aluminium is very rough and our feet and fingers leave marks. We understand that you have a lot of experience dealing with aluminium so we were wondering if you had any advice regarding these issues. Should we sand the decks? Will it get better as the boat oxidizes? Should we just leave it be? Can you help? Regards, Kelly
Hi Kelly: Yes we do have some experience, in fact exactly the learning curve you have gone through! Our first unpainted boat was sandblasted. Moving if from the build shed to the water it was marked by some tree branches and I realized we’d made a mistake. The concept is to be easily able to refinish a rough spot, which means grinding, not sand blasting. So, we ground off all the expensive sand blast finish!
For the deck, the nonskid material, as long as it gives you a good foot hold, is the best approach. Otherwise, what we ended up doing on Sundeer was using the edge of a cut-off wheel and grind the decks to put a tooth into them. But a good plastic tread would give better traction.
The sandblasting leaves a porous finish, and until this naturally oxidizes, probably four to six months, it is going to show more things like finger prints. I am not sure why, but the smooth mill finish, or a ground finish with heavy Scotch Brite pads seem not to have the same problem.
Seems like you have two options. Stay with what you have for now. Or get out the grinder and lots of Scotch Brite and go to work. Beowulf, at 78′, took about 80 hours to polish the topsides, grind the decks, and polish the coamings.
Good Luck with whatever you decide you do – Steve
Posted by Steve Dashew (November 30, 1999)
December 8th, 2009 at 2:12 am
Thanks for the useful reply, mr. Steve. I’m also in the sandblasting business and I can appreciate helpful comments for all the people, who aren’t skilled and knowledgable in that job.
Tilen