I'll just chime in that my epoxy did the same thing last weekend when I took it the boat out for a test ride before varnishing.  Fresh water, about 3 hours worth of  paddling, and probably about 2 months since the last coat.  This was the first time it hit water, and all areas of the hull that got wet, particularly the bottom, were affected in a way that looks almost exactly the same.  White surface mess that doesn't wash off.

Since I planned on varnishing this week I didn't worry too much about it; I just sanded it off and the varnish seems to have gone on fine; I'm on the third coat of Interlux Gold.

In case it's an epoxy batch issue, there is a tag on both my resin and hardener that says:

061312/100

52385

It's the normal MAS epoxy that comes as part of the CLC kits.

Glad to hear it looked better after sanding and varnishing- hope it holds.

My batch #'s are 092512/100  and 092612/100

       53263, in case a pattern developes.

Good luck.

So far, I've only used epoxy from West Systems. For both of you, how did the "crinkly epoxy" look when you wet it?  If it disappears when wet, I would think that it would disapapera under varnish too.

I have some Schooner (Gold?) varnish to use up first, but I'm looking forward to getting Le Tonkinois 2 in the future.

Keith

When I wet it with water & soap (in an attempt to wash off what I thought was lake scum) it would be more transparent, but never really go away.  There is a rough texture to it, to, almost like dried sea foam.  I scrubbed at it a while progressing from method cleaner, to simple green, to soft scrub before giving up.

A prep of the epoxy surface with 220 sand paper and some Interlux 333 removed any trace of the white stuff; I was a little nervous at first because the white sanded area might be hiding the problem, but when I put the varnish on it was fine.

I got to thinking (danger, danger) that this surface "stuff" may be amine blush even though I used the 'non-blush' stuff that CLC supplied.

If you look at images online of amine blush- it looks like it.  I read that slow cure, cold and wet conditions (like here in this Seattle winter- 27 consecutive days with measurable rain this december) tends to favor the developement of amine blush, and it occured after I put the boat out in the backyard for a couple days.

So I'm gong to pretend that that is the issue, and use a scotchbright pad and water (which we have plenty of around here) to scrub it down before my final epoxy fill coat.

Hickory