I use woody wax. Its expensive but its amazing works wonders on plastics too

 

I only use polish after buffing with Presta Ultra Cutting Creme.

I used to use the 3M products but with the Presta you can skip the Finnesse-It and go straight to polish.

 

I just went on line and read about the Presta, sounds like some really good stuff, may have to try it myself.

 

Chaulking is due to oxidized gel coat. After 20 years of exposure, your gel coat is breaking down. Gel coat is actually polyester resin with pigment added to it. The pigments, especially in dark colors will bleed out first and the base pigment in the gel will come out. I see this a lot and they only way to remedy is as follows.

Provided you have sufficent gel coat millage left on the boat. You need to wetsand. This removed the outer layers of of oxidized material, and expose a deeper layer of gel. Start with 320 grit and work out to 1000. Use a quality cutting creme and then a PFTE (Teflon) based polish.

Be careful not to burn through the gel coat or you wil start to see laminate shadow. If that happens, you will need to gel coat or paint entire surface.

You can also appky polyglow (acrylic sealer like mop and glow), It will seal the surface and make it shiny, but you will need to keep up with the maintenace routine the product requires.

Good Luck.

 

Thanks to all of for the replies. I will try the recommended wax and application before a wet sand.
A shiny boat doesn't catch more fish, its just a pet peeve I have.
Thanks again for all the advice! This is what makes this forum great.
S-N