: I was just wondering if anyone ever puts a coat of wax on their boats as a
: final finish? It makes a very slick finish on woodwork as well as adding
: just a bit more protection. Water would bead up and the boat might be hard
: to grab ahold of when it is wet but it sure would be pretty. just
: wondering, Steve.

Before you all get out your wax and buffing rags consider this:

Unfortunately, water under a hull does not slide off the way other objects will on a waxed surface. A minute layer of water in contact with a surface stays in place and the rest flows past. I'll leave it to our physics majors here to describe the exact problem.

I used to race small sail boats and I thought about waxing one time, but was told to forget it. If you can produce a mucous layer to slip out of, like a dolphin, then you can go faster. On sail hull we sometimes put a coating of dish detergent which would act like the dolphin skin for a while, but this became illegal in race rules.

I think any small advantage waxing may give in sliding off rocks will be more than offset by the number of times your boat is going to slide out of your hands and fall off the car or onto the rocks.

I would not consider waxing the deck if you ever plan to get back into the boat using self-rescue techniques.

And waxing your boat means you’ll have to scrub the whole boat down VERY CAREFULLY with mineral spirits to remove all that wax to apply another coat of varnish. If you don’t get all the wax off you’ll have contamination problems.

So these are the reasons I don’t wax my boats.

All the best,

Rob Macks
Laughing Loon CC&K
www.LaughingLoon.com