Need help with gelcoat (photo included)

[BoatLover]

Hey guys,
First off I'd like to say awesome site with lots of info and great bunch of guys. Hard to find forums like this these days.. Keep it up.

I have a buddy with a 18' boat that needs detailing, boat is in mint shape other than these wierd white spots which are located on only about half of the boat. Not sure what they are ( there is even some on the sticker). Ive tried the 3M heavy duty compound and polish by hand to do a test. The results Ive been having is the spots disappear but as soon as I let it dry for 2-3min the white spots are back.

Any ideas how to get rid of em? Im thinking I'll have to wetsand with 1500 then 3 step process in order to get rid of it.

Any help is appreciated, thanks a bunch

[Just02896]

I'm thinking a rotary and some heavy cut compound will do the trick.

[Durallymax]

The spots are "etched" into the gel coat, when you rub a product over them it "fills" them in and hides them until it flashes away and you see the edge's again.

X2 on a rotary, wool and heavy compounding. Eat your wheaties.

[Theraven]

Wetsand it, I use to buff out a colored hull that had etched water spots in the gel and it would always come back in the same area/cluster after a few months or less. After I wetsanded and buffed out those areas they did not reappear. I tried grinding to pretty hard with heavy duty compounds, but the results didn't last untill i wetsanded it first.

[Chase_910]

Use a heavy cut water based compound first (Farecla Profile 100 / Presta Supercut / Aqua Buff 1000) with a twisted wool pad. Petroleum based compounds will mask the buffing results and when the petroleum base dries out the actual results reappear. If the above products won't work then you will have to switch to wet sanding.