Color Matching and Anguish...
Thanks for the reply , its looking like the Yard may be doing my repair $$$$ . Really regret docking at the rough water dock for the meal everybody had to have. I wonder if one can remove some of the gelcoat and send it off to a lab for analysis and then have a company do the perfect match, I guess if you have enough money anything is possible. Will keep searching if I find out anything will post it.Thanks Archangel
I have hit a few docks over the decades with our boat (and the two before it...). As long as the damage is only in the outer layer of gel coat you will (or they will) be able to gently buff it out. EY laid down a decent gel goat layer when they built their boats, unlike a few cheaper makes we could name. Still, once the surface is older than about 1980 or so, many boats will start to show the substrate layer of color indicating that it's time for a repaint.
UV is the main culprit, and the further south the boat lives the more UV will attack it.
Aside: a friend of mine moved from a nice E-30-2 to a larger mid-80's C&C 35 and he went to the trouble to find his big boat in the Great Lakes area where this one was kept covered and out of the water for half the year. It has some signature C&C problems with the window and cabin side molding, but the hull and deck color still shows really well.
See, geography really was important to study in school!
As for matching. Aye Yi Yi.
I have, after some failures, done some filling of divots in our boat. I received great advice from on the the best ship wrights in the area on matching. It's a subtle skill, and tiny amounts of other shades will be needed to mix in with the base white gel coat.
Write down the "formula" for your boat once you or the yard guy/gal gets it right. And, do cut them a little slack. One the chief unknowns is just how much it will change as it fades in the first season or two after the repair. Your repair may lighten or darken.
Your original color did indeed have a identifying name on the chart, but that color and batch only existed for the months when EY bought that barrel... it's been a long time.
Back in 1980 when I was selling small sailboats for fun, I had the Ferro Corp color chart and could order from 50 or more colors. That company is looooooong gone, and even then, each batch might be subtly different even tho formulated to the same shade.
Still, most of us, with some effort can come up with a match that will pass the 10 or even the 5 foot test.
Biggest challenge that I had was finding out just what other colors besides Base White need to be added to make up my particular hull color.
I would guess, off hand, that once you get the right amount of light gray, your "Ericson white" might need just a tiny bit of yellow to warm it up.
If you DIY, get a small can of base white, some tubes of color, and do some mixing.... you will be using an oz at a time and measuring the additions in drops. Keep notes. Once it kicks, hold it up against the boat and see if it needs to be whiter, grayer, warmer, colder, etc.
Good luck.