Gel coat discussion-I don’t get it.

[SST]

Many years ago while returning to my slip the wind caught my boat and pushed me into an outboard boat with its engine fully raised. Needless to says it caused a large gash into the gelcoat. There was also lengthy key scratch along side as well.

I took plenty of wet sand paper to try and smooth them out. I sanded the scratches specifically and the area around them. I stopped because I was afraid of sanding it all away. So I left it alone.

As you guys may remember from the other forum how much effort I put into the entire boat to get rid of the sun that faded all of it. Wet sanding with various grades; compounding, polishing and waxing. But even today nothing holds up. The sun kills my gelcoat. Except for the two scratched areas. Those two areas around the scratches look so clear they look brand new. I’m trying to figure out why these two areas are so resistant to the sun when the rest of the boat is bleached out. I haven’t done anything special to these areas.

This photo is the outboard more “scratch. “

Key scratch photo

 

[SST]

I’m not going to get involved in another gel coat battle but I am interested in opinions. I wish my whole boat looked like those scratch areas.

 

[Doc]

That is truly strange. I've never seen anything like that.

 

[Denny]

I believe what you did, was to sand down through the tiny microscopic pin holes in the gelcoat that form with age and is part of the aging process.
When I painted my girl, there was a about a 1ft sq area that was not sanded well enough and all these tiny pin holes showed up when the primer was applied, resanded deeper into the gelcoat and they were gone.

 

[SST]

Never heard of those pin holes before. It amazes me that these areas have lasted nearly 10 years without fading while the rest of the boat, after two attempts to "regenerate" it, keeps fading. Too much work now.

Thanks for the info