: Any area regularly exposed to sunlight like an open canoe or the
: cockpit of a kayak should be varnished to protect the epoxy.

: What you could be seeing is water intrusion through a layer of
: fiberglass/epoxy that is not waterproof.

: I have seen on old stripper interiors where the surface has dirt
: imbedded in the cloth with whitist cloth,
: and in worst cases, areas of de-lamination.

: This is caused by not sealing the cloth (after wet-out) with an
: additional coat of epoxy.

: On the hull or deck interior, a seal coat is not normally applied.
: When dry wood and fiberglass cloth are wet-out
: at the same time they battle to absorb resin. Wood does so more
: slowly, so after squeegeeing off excess resin from
: the fiberglass (as you should to remove excess resin to prevent
: wrinkles of cloth floating on pools of resin), the wood may
: still absorb more, leaving the fiberglass drier than expected
: and NOT WATERPROOF.

: Another single coat of resin will ensure a water proof surface.

: If interior surfaces are coated with temperatures rising you will
: have some bubbles in the epoxy as wood off gasses.
: These pinholes cannot be sealed later (see Nonlinear Dynamics of
: Surface-Tension-Driven Instabilities) trust me,
: and these holes will admit water vapor.

: SO, coat with dropping temperatures.

: Sounds like it's not worth it? Wait ten years, you'll see.

: Rob

: I hear, I forget, I see, I remember, I do, I understand.

: Confusius

Hi Rob,

Ohhh....I keep forgetting that some builders insist on putting glass onto uncoated wood. I never do and forget about the problems doing that.

Bill H.