[GageCreasy]

Last year I bought a Talari 209 (maybe a 202 my mind is slipping a little) and the previous owner kept it covered, but the hull is in dire need of being refinished. I know different places charge different prices but I was looking for a ball park price from someone that has done this. Thanks.

[300sflyer]

When you say "refinished" do you mean totally painted with marine paint, or rubbed out with polishing compound, and then waxed?

[Z 202]

Mine cost about $60 in Meguairs products and a day of my time. I used the 3 step restoration kit. I was very pleased with the results. Depending on how badly faded yours is your mileage may vary.

[RKgrubbs]

I have been told that my hull has blisters that are allowing water to seep into the boat. Has anybody had or heard of this problem?

[Zenon]

RK - ours is a 94, and it has the dreaded blisters. A bad couple years apparently at Mariah, with gelcoat problems.

I've done some searching on this forum for others caught in the 1994 gelcoat blister nightmare, but there doesn't seem to be anyone but you!? Wtf?

I'd love to hear more about your problems... We can chat via this thread, or maybe PM's?

Ours is kept in a dry boathouse. It's had blisters for like 10 years now, but none have gotten so bad as to weep. Probably bc it's dry all the time.

I've repaired a few myself. Not very difficult.

Mariah was going to re-do the entire hull under warranty, until they went bust. I was all set to ship them my boat. Dammit. Refinishing the entire hull is big $, and they were going to do it for "free". I was pretty upset when they went belly up.

We just keep our fingers crossed, and try to keep it OUT of the water as much as possible (kinda stupid for a boat, I know, but we still use it as much as possible).

Anyways, hope you are out there and can describe your situation in more detail.

Thanks!
Z

[RKgrubbs]

Sadly I decided that it would be better to get rid to the boat.
But, here is what happened to the hull...
It hd been ot of the water for aqbout two years due to my son
needing a sip for his boat. He did not want to use the Mariah and
bought a Yamaha jet.
My partner and I had the boat checked over for the season and
made ready to run. Well ,he did not find tha the bellows all around were
rotted and when we put it into the water, she almost sunk in two days.
We had that fixed and they water tested their work and saw that water
was seeping into the boat and when they hoisted it into the air they saw
a bunch of bliststers. I was wowed when I saw how many. The boat people
said that it was caused by air bubbles in the fiberglass way back at the very begining.
The water softened the gelcoat and allowed the bubbles to come to the surface and
gradually bgecame thin enough to allow water to seep.
If I had a place to keep and work on the boat I would have tried to resurface it myself.
I read about a product on this site that seemed like the right thing..don't remember
it's name right now.
The mechanic said that none of the people he uses for this kind of repair would not
touch it as it would be about 4K and would come back again. However if we would
drain the boat after every use, we could get more life out of the boat.
Good luck witb yours... and keep checking for seeping water.
rk

[300sflyer]

Here are a couple good articles on gelcoat blisters.

http://www.diybob.com/HotBlister.htm

http://www.cncphotoalbum.com/doityou...oat_repair.htm

Hope that helps!

[Zenon]

Thanks RK. That's a heck of a story. Especially the part where they said it would come back even if repaired!? Yikes.

I find this really weird. When I found the mariahownersclub, I thought "oh, good - there will be plenty of people talking about the blistering from 93,94 (or maybe 94-95, I can't remember what the factory guy said).

The people at Mariah, at the time, were VERY conscious that they had produced a bad batch of fibreglass. And they changed their formulations from 95 or 96 onwards, and said it wasn't a problem anymore.

So I'm shocked that there aren't many more threads from many more owners about this.

Maybe those owners who were hit hard by this have simply scrapped their boats by now, and don't care to resurrect the past on a forum like this. Or maybe they don't even know, and then might get a situation like yours.??

FWIW, the factory said that if they refinished the hull, the repair would be permanent. So I'm not sure about this "air bubbles in the original mix migrating to the surface" thing. That is totally new to me, and also confusing. I thought it was just water getting into the glass from the wetted surface, and not the bilge that was the problem. And that was due to the poor formulations used by Mariah in the affected years.

If your boat was kept in the water in a slip all season, then it would surely accelerate the problem.

I don't suppose you kept any pictures?

And who did you manage to sell it to? Or did you piece it apart and sell the engine, drive, parts, etc?

That's my other concern, of course. At the time when I learned about this, I thought "oh, great, well there goes any chance of selling the (expletive) thing". Because who's gonna buy a boat with hull blisters? But then I did more reading and learned that blisters are actually fairly common. Especially on older boats - cruisers, yachts, etc. And they aren't all because of bad glass formulation.

I guess the whole resale thing doesn't matter as much now, as I see that comparable boats are selling on this forum for like $3-5k. And bc ours still works great and suits our needs (and fits perfectly in the boathouse), we'll just keep it forever (until it's only worth $2k haha).

But I still get hot under the collar when I think of the Mariah/bad glass/warranty/ going out of business just in time to NOT repair my hull shenanigans.

And once again, I'm surprised that there isn't a lot more talk about this on these forums.

Do the forum founders/moderators know anything more about the 2 "dark years" in Mariah glass?

Z

[ShabahZ280]

Sorry to hear about your issues. Honestly I had heard of it once, and had forgotten about it until you mentioned it. It seems to me I read a Boat US complaint that was filed about it. Considering the site's been up and running for almost 3 years now, and no one's ever posted about it until now, I'd say it sounds like it might have only affected a few boats during that specific time period. We do have a few ex-Mariah employees on here, perhaps they might be able to shed some light on the problems or the solutions!

[SuperdaveTX]

Yeah.. That is a bummer. The serial number on mine says it is was made in 94, but listed as a 95 model. Luckily I do not have any blisters so it seems they changed the formulation in 94ish or, it wasn't a problem for everything they made. Not sure, but that really sucks, especially about having it ready to ship to get redone....