In The Red

Two more long days working on the boat, but it is finally coming together. I have picked August 8th as a tentative launch date, so with that goal in mind, I have been working away.



I spent all of yesterday and this morning going over everything with 220 grit paper as a final sanding before I began applying the final 2 coats of paint. Below are the last two photos of the boat taken while it was white, and a couple hours later it looked drastically different.


I began with Interlux Perfection's "Mediterranean White" for the cabinhouse and the cockpit and any other spots on deck that would be white. The paint flowed really well, but it was still pretty difficult to avoid drips around all of the ports and corners, so that will have to be touched up with the second coat. Overall, however, I am pretty happy with how glossy it came out and in general it is very smooth without drips.

After the white is where it gets a little dicey. While the application went very well, and it looks very smooth and even, I am a little concerned that maybe the red on the topsides is a little too red. A couple of years ago, our neighbors in the harbor went to have their boat Awlgripped, and wanted it Flag Blue, but they ended up with Aristo Blue, its lighter colored brother. It ended up looking awful, and they told the story about how you should be careful about picking out the color without seeing a sample in daylight, because it could end up looking a little different then expected. Well, today, I worried that that story could end up being me soon. I had hoped for a Claret Red, which is a little darker and closer to Maroon, but I ended up with a color that I would say is closer to fire engine red, and it really does look very red.

While my initial reaction was to stop painting immediately and order a new color, I continued and finished the whole boat and then stepped back to really soak it all in. It probably didn't help that the boat right in front of me in the yard was closer to the color I actually wanted, but I decided that once the bottom is painted black, the white bootstripe and covestripe have been painted in, and all the bright work is refinished and it won't look quite so stark. My mother agreed, and somebody in the boatyard came over to tell me that it looked great and "fast." So I guess I will just have a really red boat, and I'll probably get used to it.

The plan is to paint the second (and final) coat on Thursday or Friday, and then in the ensuing days launch into full speed varnish/deck painting and final details to get her ready to launch.