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.

Since I last posted on Tuesday, work has progressed rapidly on many projects on the boat. To begin with, on Friday morning, I picked up the last supplies I needed for the paint job, and then headed to the boatyard. While initially I had thought that sanding wouldn't take too long, I ended up spending around four hours going over everything that was going to be painted, first with 80 Grit paper, then with 120 grit paper.
This is the hull after everything has been sanded.While I had hoped to be wrapping up the priming the hull by around 5 in the afternoon, in reality I was just finishing laying the tape. After figuring out the order that I was going to paint in, I began mixing the paint, and started painting around six. Everything went pretty smoothly, and I heard the cannons at the yacht clubs announcing sunset right as was finishing. As such, the only pictures I got for the day were pretty dim.

As much as I didn't really want to paint so late in the evening, I think that one of the surprise benefits was that when I returned in the morning, there was not a single bug caught in the paint, in contrast to the dozens that I had encountered painting mid-day with the coats of epoxy.

Anyway, below are some pictures in the daylight from after the first coat of primer. I think it came out pretty well.
Saturday morning, however, was not rest for me though, as I began sanding everything I had just painted to smooth out any bumps or wrinkles. I also mixed up some more filler to fair a couple more spots that were bothering me on the topsides, resulting in a very flat, smooth hull. I then started another coat of the primer, and remarkably, I still ended up working on the paint job until about 8 that night.

Here's how she looked the next morning:

As you can see, the boat is looking much better now that all the crazing is covered up, any of patched are painted, and everything has an even coat of paint.

This morning, I went to the boat and began sanding everything with 220 grit paper, but ultimately weather got in the way of that and I headed home. Back at the house, I spent the remainder of the afternoon sanding all the exterior woodwork and the cabin sole, doing the final preparations to begin varnishing them tomorrow.

Depending on the weather, I will either be painting or doing more sanding in preparation for painting on Tuesday, which has a perfect weather forecast.

Big Moves

While my progress might not be all that exciting for today, it was pretty cool that when I showed up at the boat yard this morning, the two boats that were blocking me in were gone! For the first time in 3 years, the boat could actually get launched, now I just have to finish all the painting.

Today I applied two coats of epoxy to the topsides which did a good job of filling a lot of the crazing in the gelcoat as well as smoothing out a lot of the other tiny imperfections.


Once the weather cooperates, I can sand this and then after two more coats of primer can apply the final paint, which should hopefully be done in a week.

I also spend some time today starting to sand the cabin and cockpit, as well as a fair amount of time sanding on the interior. I will be working in the office tomorrow, but will return to the boat either Thursday or Friday, depending on which day has better weather.

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...

Noticable Progress

So after two very long days working on the boat, there is a lot of progress to report.

To begin with, I went over the topsides with 80 grit paper to smooth out all the filler, and in the process also removed a lot of other imperfections in the hull and discovered yet another layer of some type of primer or residue on the hull, which has been removed leaving the boat looking great.

After going over the topsides, I moved on to sanding the filler on the cabin, which is pretty smooth now. I finally got around to sanding the paint off of the companionway hatch (the top), which was the last of the old paint to come off the boat.

As much fun as sanding outside in the 80 degree heat (I had to stop a couple times because of the sweat dripping down my face and pooling in my goggles), I moved into the cabin and finally got some painting down below.

While its not exactly glamorous, I painted the anchor locker, and all the under-berth storage areas.
While I hadn't initially planned to paint the bilge, even though I wanted to, I compromised and just painted the hull sides down until the bottom, but not the bottom itself or any of the floor joists.
I really didn't want to paint the very bottom because it had never been painted before and I didn't want to deal with any paint flaking off and getting clogged in the bilge pump in any high abrasion areas.

While a lot of this is pretty subtle, I think its pretty good progress. While I'll be in the office for the next couple days, I am hoping (weather permitting) that on Saturday the first coat of epoxy can go on the hull and cabin, and then the two coats of Interlux primer on Monday and Tuesday.

Friday marks the 3 year anniversary of when I purchased the boat...above is what I hope it will look like soon.

Making Headway

For the first time in a while, I didn't spend the majority of the day sanding. Having finally removed all the old paint from the topsides, cockpit, cabin house and deck edges, it was time to start working on prep work for painting.

I began by grinding out all the nicks and gouges in the hull to prepare for filling them. There were a lot of little gouges in the hull which I enlarged so that the filler would adhere better. After doing the same to some places on the deck, etc, I cleaned everything up and mixed the filler.

After filling everything, it kind of looks like the boat has chicken pox.

This is definitely one of those times that the boat has to look worse before it can look better. I know that once everything is sanded and painted it will better. The owners of the boat next to me in the yard, which is 2 years old, were kind of looking at me and my "project" in disbelief, but eventually it will look new again.

There was a ridge along the top of the cabin house that used to have a teak eyebrow attached, so there was a lot of filling needed. At the bottom of the house, there were a lot of small voids in the gelcoat that needed to be filled as well. I can't wait to sand all that tomorrow....

While the filler cured, I moved into the cabin, and more or less finished removing 40 years worth of varnish. Needless to say, trying to fit myself into contorted positions to get to everything while using a heat gun on a hot and humid day was less than ideal, but I am pretty satisfied to have the bulk of the varnish removed. The wood underneath actually is in pretty good shape for the most part.

It wasn't until I got home and was taking a shower that it dawned on me that 2008 is the year that the boat turns 40. I think it is pretty fitting that for its 40th birthday its getting a complete make-over.