I really want a boat shop

Well the weather here in Marblehead has been awful the last three days, which has really hindered progress. Thunderstorms every afternoon and high humidity don't really make for good painting conditions. On Saturday, I finished sanding a few more details, worked down below a little, and painted the lazarette. Then, the rain came so I moved home and sanded some of the exterior woodwork that was in the basement.

Today, Monday, was a little bit better in the morning, so I worked to put the first layer of epoxy down on the cabin and cockpit before the rain came. It was pretty nice to finally be painting instead of sanding, although there will be more sanding to come.

I began by masking around the area that would be painted, and cleaning everything as well.

It was nice to see where things will be outlined eventually, and I was pretty excited to get a sense of how the boat will look once the deck and cabin are painted different colors instead of all just being white.
After wiping everything down, I coated it all with one coat of epoxy which seems to be doing a good job of leveling many of the slight imperfections as well as filling the voids created by the crazing in the original gelcoat.
I had hoped to removed all the ports on the cabin house before painting, but the bronze screws on the larger ports proved impossible to unscrew, so I will just have to paint around it all.
It's not too obvious in these pictures, but everything has a nice shine to it now, which will help in figuring out what other spots might need more fairing before the next coats of primer come.

I had hope to put a coat on the hull as well, but another light rainstorm was coming and I didn't think painting in the rain would be a good idea. Now if I only had a boat shop, this wouldn't be a problem...