Since this subject comes up periodically, I wanted to report back on my experience with getting the bottom of the boat stripped recently. I decided to go with a company that did dustless sandblasting as their quote was about $600 less than the other option which was walnut shell blasting. Those were the only options I could find in the area. When I talked to the company, they described the process as having crushed glass in a stream of water which and both would accumulate under the boat and just need to be wrapped up and carted away when done to clean up. They did not tent the boat but just put plastic sheeting underneath and double taped the waterline to protect it. After the job was done, I came out to look and was pleased by the results in terms of the hull itself. It was clean and smooth with no paint left to be sanded and as advertised, essentially ready for painting. However, there was a huge amount of wet send under the boat on the plastic and puddles of water as well. There was some dust on the ground nearby which was red tinged by the bottom paint. It did not concern me, but the yard manager went ballistic about the “mess” around the boat and surrounding area. Using a broom, I was able to lightly sweep and make the surrounding dust disappear since it was essentially sand. The blasting guy said to just leave the sand under the boat for a few days to allow the water to evaporate and then wrap up the plastic. He is dreaming. Even with unusually warm temperatures, the amount of water associated with the sand would take months to evaporate in warm weather. I punched holes in the plastic to drain off the excess water and started shoveling the wet sand into buckets. It took multiple trips with the car full of buckets and lots of advil to remove what I would estimate to be at least 500 pounds of wet sand. Nothing like that was ever mentioned in advance by the company. If I had known the amount of work it was going to take to clean up, I would have paid them to do it ($300-400). So the summary is that this process worked fine for stripping, but I am not sure I would use it again and I am very sure my yard manager will never let them back into the yard to do another boat. Dave
Aries 1990 C&C 34+ New London, CT
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