sticky pvc raft

I've heard of this issue with some cheap PVC boats and late 90's (I think?) achilles boats....I got the impression that it was a problem typical of early pvc materials.

I *believe* it comes from UV exposure and I *doubt* anything can be done about it. I did hear one guy was told by a manufacturer that the sol'n was to clean the material with a solvent and repaint the boat...so it's unlikely that it's worth saving if this is the only fix.

...it's probably on it's way out.

My boat was replaced due to this issue. Manufacturer called it PVC mitigation and gave me a new boat. Is yours red?


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I had a similar problem with a PVC boat that I had cleaned with Wesley's Bleche White, After a couple of years of this cleaning the fabric started to get gummy, sticky and 2 years or so later the seams started coming apart, I had always assumed it was the harsh and inappropriate cleaner that caused my problem, maybe it was the other PVC issues mentioned above. FYI, I bought the boat new in 2000 so it was probably made in 1999. It gave up the ghost in 2010. The fabric started getting sticky in 2008 or so.

I guess cheap PVC comes in multi colors. The boat I have is grey. It would also seem that I need to start thinking about checking out new boats. Thanks for the input.

I believe I read somewhere (Aire website?) that 303 should only be used once per year on PVC. May not be the problem, but may not be helping to use it more often.