Hull Wax or Ceramic Coating

[Excalibur5]

Hello,


I am in the finals stages of a complete rebulild from bare hull up of a 1980's fiberglass boat. The factory gelcoat is in amazing condition as it spent nearly its entire life shaded by trees in a side yard. We have lightly sanded and buffed the gelcoat to a high shine, and are getting ready to apply protectorant, and are unsure of what is best to use.



I've been looking at standard fiberglass hull wax vs ceramic coatings in lieu of wax. The ceramic coatings seem superior, but I have zero experience with them. What are the opinions of the fleet? Are there issues to be aware of or brands to recommend?


Note price is not the object here, just best quality and durability of finish. If it makes a difference, we are in a wet and cool climate (southeast Alaska).

[shimari]

We ceramic coated our boat last spring. We have a dark gelcoat that is in excellent shape, and found we were having to wax far more often than we liked the first summer. The gel coated cap rails took a huge hit from the sun. We're very happy after the first year.

The key and the biggest cost is in the prep work. If your gelcoat is new, then the cost won't be bad. Apply ceramic coating is easier than waxing...it's literally wipe on, wait a bit, and wipe off. We had ours professionally applied since our gelcoat needed a fair amount of work to remove swirls etc.

The cost was 2-3x the cost of a professional wax coating, but the expectation is that we only need to touch-up the hull annually. The cap rail we need to touch up 2-3 times a season due to getting much more sun. We've been told it will last for 5 yrs in the Annapolis area and around 2-3 yrs further south. But, reapplication is easy since there shouldn't be substantial prep work. We have found we need to touch up where our fenders are though.

Red Sky here in Annapolis did the coating, and they're awesome. They use the pro Undrdog products: https://getundrdog.com/products/undrdog-pro

If you have the time, this is something you can do yourself. My understanding is the key is not leaving the coating on too long or too short of time.

I may have some before and after pics of our cap rail. If I can find them, I'll post.

[slugsgomoo]

So mine is on paint and not gelcoat, but I've been frustrated by the amount of labor in traditional waxes, so I'm testing something on my boat this year from the automotive side of the world- https://www.griotsgarage.com/ceramic-3-in-1-wax/ (I've used their stuff on cars/bikes for a long, long time with good results, but this is a new product for me)

I think it's been on for ~6 months and so far everything is looking good (I went down to the boat the other day and water is still beading up beautifully). If it keeps the navy blue stripe on my boat from oxidizing and needing to be buffed out, I'm putting it in the win column.

My dad has a black car that's parked outside in Arizona that I also used it on, so that should be a pretty solid test over the next year