How to restore heat damaged Gelcoat?

Skipper November 22, 2011 Ask The Skipper

Scott Gable asked:

I have a fiberglass boat that was in a building with a fire. The white gel coat has now turned to a beige color with some streaking. Do you recommend any of your products to help clean this up? The fiberglass is still all smooth but it has just discolored a little.

Answer:

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The damage is caused by the heat from the fire and it’s highly unlikely that you will be able to get it white again. You will probably have to refinish it. Also, have a professional check to make sure that the fiberglass is still in good shape. The heat can make it brittle which would be susceptible to cracking.

Boat manufacturers have been using a 50/50 solution our Boat Clean Plus and Boat Scrub with great success to get yellowing out of gel coat caused from the use of carnauba wax. You can try this to see if it helps, but no guarantees. The next step is to try and wet sand it with a fine grit sandpaper to see if it’s not too deep. You may get lucky and by removing the top few layers of gelcoat get down to white. You can then use rubbing compound to remove the scratch marks and then reseal and polish it with Premium Boat Shine which is all synthetic. Keep in mind that this type of drastic procedure will result in a higher degree of maintenance to keep the boat looking good. You will probably have to re-polish it every 3 months.

Thanks for your question,

Captain Aurora
Richard Kittar