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Yacht Care for Boating Enthusiasts

ByDave Stopher

Feb 19, 2020 #Sports

When it comes to major maintenance on engines and systems, it’s always prudent to consult the expertise of an independent or boatyard professional who deals with HVAC, plumbing, electrical, engines, etc. However, the more basic care and maintenance of ensuring your boat remains tidy and beautiful doesn’t require the expense or attention of hired help – a yacht cradle can really help with this. Purchase the best with expert advice.

Generally speaking, these tasks can be done by the owners or even with an enthusiastic child or grandchild, just make sure that the maintenance gets performed regularly. Read on and learn how to keep a shining showroom on your gelcoat or paint finish.

Work your way from the top all the way down. Mostly, grime accumulates on the fiberglass hardtop and the tower buggy top. If you wait for the rain to wash it away, there will be black streaks left down the hull and topsides.

Use a neutral PH soap that doesn’t remove the wax to wash. Dish detergents will often quickly dissolve wax and then expose the paint or gelcoat to the elements.

For fiberglass and metal surfaces, use clean cotton mitts. For the vinyl enclosure, use another mitt to prevent transferring from one surface to another. Now and then, take all of the cotton mitts and ensure you toss them into your washing machine to get rid of residual dirt that accumulates in the fibers.

Furthermore, we would recommend that you use a mild detergent that’s free of fragrance and dyes when washing the mitts in your clothes washer, and also add a few grams of distilled white vinegar to avoid leaving a residue on the mitts from your laundry soap.

Only the paint manufacturer’s recommendations will dictate how the painted boats will be washed and waxed.

Dry with a clean terry cloth towel, a chamois, or a blade. Water left to evaporate results in black painted glass and windshield masks and spotting on metal. A good investment would be a dockside filtration canister.

Wax isn’t similar to polish; wax seals, while polish cleans and preps the surface for wax.

The wax protection is already gone if the water doesn’t bead on the surface. Always ensure to test a small area to identify the condition of the substrate. In case the wax becomes hard to remove, the surface requires to be cleaned before you can successfully apply the wax.

Although cleaner/ waxes bring together two steps into one, they’re not as durable when compared to the pure wax coating.

We recommend using cleaner/ waxes that are well-matched with your gelcoat finish or paint between hard coat waxings, many products aren’t harsh to waxed finishes and might assist in prolonging the hard coat waxed surface’s durability.