: There are two reasons that I have heard for discoloration, UV exposure and
: blush. To stop the UV exposure problems, don't epose the taped seam to UV
: rays until after the hull is fully fiberglassed and epoxied. To stop the
: blush problems, carefully wash the epoxied area before sealing and
: glassing the hull.

Some of the taped seams on my Arctic Tern look like that, too, and I was very disgruntled. But I don't think it's blush, because I would have seen the cloudyness on the wood near the tape, but it only shows up where the tape is, and where the deck cloth overlaps the hull side. And I built my Tern in my apartment living room where it wasn't exposed to UV light.

I think it has to do with the very fine weave of the tape and with technique. Some of my butt joints wet out perfectly, others looked cloudy. I think due to the fine weave of the 2-oz. tape, minute bubbles are trapped and gives that cloudy look -- basically just foamy epoxy. I think you just need to pay particularly close attention, lay on a good amount of epoxy, and do a lot of squeegee-ing. In the case of the deck/hull overlap, it's easy to put good squeegee-ing pressure on the deck itself, but to let up a bit as you wrap over the shear. The Tern was my first kayak, and I was paranoid about getting all that epoxy laid on the entire deck and squeegeed, so I was working fast.

Dean