I just picked up a carbon fiber Grasse River canoe. It is in great shape except for being very dirty and having a good bit of "sunburn"; the clearcoat has turned white from UV exposure. I have given it a good scrubbing, and now want to see if I can get rid of the white haze. 303 Aerospace has been suggested, but does anyone have any suggestions on this product or anything else?

Let's see some pics!

Here is what she looked like when I brought her home. A bit of elbow grease with soap and water helped a lot. Next job is to attack the fading. I think this will qualify as a "canoe rescue".
I can hardly wait to get this one in the water!
It has been some week. I sold 2 touring kayaks and bought this canoe in just 3 days: A big turnover in my boat stable.

Extremely cool. Hopefully someone has some good ideas for the refurb.

You may want to lob in a call or email to Newman Designs...it's possible they will have some firsthand know-how.

More photos once you've finished!

I'm not an expert......more of a trial and error DIY'er, but I have refurbed a bunch of canoes. First, I think you have to for sure determine if it is indeed a clear gel coat hull, or a skin coat. Being carbon fiber (which I have no experience with), I would say probably clear gel coat. My next question would be if more of the burn is in the clear coat, or if the carbon fiber has been sunburned like kevlar sunburns with bad UV exposure......or both. This may be as simple as a good polishing compound, or it may not clear out until it gets sanded down and wetted out again with an epoxy skim coat or maybe spar varnish. I have tried all 3 before with varying degrees of success (and slight failures) depending on the hull type and manufacturer.
This was a Mad River Malecite that had bad sunburn, water damage. I was told by a canoe shop that it was the gel coat that was damaged but these were not gel coat boats but were ultra light kevlar skin coats with colored resin. I sanded it down and tinted the epoxy resin with a similar color and recoated the hull. Looked great and held up for 5-6 years and then everywhere there was a deeper scratch, the skim coat started flaking bad. I have since rescraped this hull with a razor, resanded and recoated.


This was a Wenonah Mocassin with a gel coat. It was pretty scratched and patched, but not faded bad. This was sanded down and again skim coated with tinted epoxy. This boat has been beat pretty good since then and has held up great. No flaking like the MR.


I also did 4 Souris River hulls (2 Huron, a Q17 and a Wilderness) all in varying degrees of abuse. The worst was the Wilderness that had severe UV damage. I t turned out OK but the kevlar had been sunburned and the boat looked patchy, but smooth and shiny.



Huron

SR hulls are easier to refurb due to having a final layer of FG and epoxy which sands down nice and recoats nice.
Again, you may have trouble getting rid of that milking blush depending on where and what it is in. But I do think it is possible to make it look considerably better. Then you'll have to see how long your fix holds up and keep it out of sun and use a lot of 303. BTW, what shape is the wood in?

Thanks for the suggestions, cowdoc.
I have done a bit more cleanup today and tried some 303. It is not back to normal, but at least it doesn't look khaki or camo anymore. My next bit of work will be sanding and refinishing the woodwork. At some point I will have to cut out and replace the deck plates due to a bit of rot. Fortunately I am a woodworker and this should not be a problem.
I also have Spar Varnish and West Marine epoxy on hand if I decide to go that route, but I am wanting to keep the weight as low as safely possible.
I like Souris River boats too. I picked up an old Tranquility a while back in a similar condition to the Grasse River; solid but dirty. A good cleaning and a bit of spar varnish set her right for my last trip ta BWCA. If I had to do more work on her, the fiberglass exterior would have made it easier.
As for keeping the canoe out of the sun after the 303, I have a "boat garage" where I store them when not in use. Boats and bikes yes, but I can't get the car in there! We all must have our priorities.

sns- I will be dropping the makers an email tomorrow. I am working up a list of questions for them. Thanks!

It has come a long ways already! Still wondering if just a good gel coat polisher might bring it back.

I'm flat-out jealous of this acquisition...

I might suggest, taking a small bit of Spar varnish, and testing it on an inconspicuous place. If it does please you ? Wipe it of after about an hour of application. Spar varnish has lived up many of my Strippers.

cowdoc: "It has come a long ways already! Still wondering if just a good gel coat polisher might bring it back."

Do you have any recommendations on the gel coat polish?

1JimD: I think I might be giving the spar varnish a try. It worked well on my SR Tranquility, lasted better than I expected and is a lot lighter than another coat of epoxy.

Sure its not a Savage River?

Cedarboy: "Sure its not a Savage River?"

I am pretty sure. The HIN is faint, but when I did a rubbing it started with GRE or GRB: GRE would be proper for a Grasse River. Savage River should start with SRW. If memory serves, Grasse River also has a more rounded tumblehome than the Savage River, which seemed flatter and more angular.

I finally broke off from work yesterday and got the canoe in a small lake. The weather was nice, partly cloudy with 7-10mph winds. I did a couple of laps around the lake and found that I REALLY like this boat! It has much more initial stability than I had guessed based on the 16'8" length and only a 26" beam, and really good secondary stability. I had no problem sitting still and watching a squirrel on shore, nor any twitchiness while moving. The speed was a blast. I did not have a GPS out with me, so I will not estimate the MPH. The only downside and expected tradeoff was maneuverability, but I figured a long straight boat like this would not turn like my SR Tranquility. I will have to work some more on my technique.

I also tried out a new paddle. The seller had a few ZRE Z mediums and I tried a couple of them out. He had a couple of bent shafts at 49" and 50" that were to short for me, but he had this weird GRE double bent (he called it a gooseneck) paddle that I tried, liked and bought! At the end of the shaft there is an "S" shaped section that shifts the blade forward so you get the blade entering the water a few inches farther ahead than where a bent shaft would enter and exits the water more vertically than an bent shaft. I had never seen one of these before and ZRE does not list it on their website. Has anyone out there tried one of these or know about it? Oh yeah, it is 54" and weighs 11.1 ounces on my digital postal scale.

I hope to get back on the water this weekend.