Greetings,

I completed a PocketShip (Puffin) two months ago and it has been moored in a local freshwater lake since then. The boat's exterior was prepped for painting per the manual, then painted with two coats of Interlux Pre-Kote primer, sanding between coats as directed, and sanding nearly all the primer off before moving directly to Interlux Brightsides paint. After sitting at it's mooring for 6 weeks or so, I now have a problem with blistering on the painted cockpit decking surface as shown in the two photos below.

The blistering is limited to the inner surface of one of the cockpit storage lockers (non sun-exposed) and the forward portion of the cockpit deck (i.e., not the seat-backs, or the hull exterior) at least so far. The larger blisters can be compressed with my thumbnail, and range in size from small "BB" to pin-prick in size. Portions of the forward part of the cockpit deck have a textured feel as though I had painted it with some non-skid product. During my painting, I tried to follow Interlux's directions to the letter including drying times; painting was done inside a garage with the roll-and-immediately-tip method using foam rollers and foam brushes, and when I had completed the boat and for at least the next several weeks, the painted surfaces in question looked "perfect."

So, fellow boat-builders (and CLC), what went wrong, what do I do about it, and how do I prevent the same thing from happening again?

I've been told by a professional boat-builder that "touching up" Brightsides is a fool's errand; that when it's time to repaint a Brightsides-painted boat, sand it all down and apply a new coat (or coats) to the entire hull; that one will always see a "touch-up job" no matter how carefully done. Despite this advice, I'm expecting I'll have to sand the cockpit decking surface down and start over on at least that part of the paint job. Any advice is deeply appreciated. (I also posted this same message on CLC's PocketShip forum but that site gets less boatbuilders' traffic these days than this general forum, and most everyone here is also using Interlux Brightsides paint.)

Thanks,
Mark Nunlist
Lebanon, NH