Porosity

[EJS]

I'm looking for advice on gelcoat porosity. A few yrs ago I wet sanded a red/white 1996 14' racing sailboat with 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500 & 3000. Cross sanding each grit with a fluorescent light to double check for previous grit sanding marks. It took quite a bit of time, but after compounding several times with Meguiar's 67, 91 & Presta polish it looked amazing. I knocked down all of the factory orange peel look in the gelcoat and the reflection was amazing.

Cut to 3 yrs later and I purchased a navy/white 2000. I'm wrapping up the same 400-3000 process and hitting a wall in the buffing phase. I switched to 3M Super Duty, Perfect It Compound #1, Perfect #2 Machine Polish & Perfect It #3 Ultra Polish. I've tried a zillion test spots and wool/foam pad combinations. At the end of the day the 3M almost seems to add a texture to the surface, like some sort of chemical reaction. The Meguiar's has trouble cutting the sand marks, which doesn't make sense as it should be able to take out 1500. The navy boat just looks like garbage compared to the older red boat. I had lengthy chats with the builder, 3M, Meguiar's and boat refinishing experts. Most just blamed it on a poor gelcoat job and said to throw in the towel. The local boat expert pulled out a small scope and showed me tiny white dots in the gelcoat. He said the boat has porosity and it would be next to impossible to finish without re-doing the gelcoat for $1200. Meanwhile on their lot I used the scope and found tons of navy boats with porosity, but that still looked great. Anybody have any experience with this?