Painting the hull....

Well, a lot has happened since I last posted.

The soft cockpit sole has been fixed. That could not have been accomplished without the help of my great (and thin) friend Graham. He was able to worm past my rudder post and remove the bottom of the cockpit sole and the soggy balsa core, (I despise the use of balsa on a boat), and glassed in 1/2" marine plywood THEN we got some 1/2" foam pipe insulation from Lowes, split that in half lengthwise and glassed that in too. That and the stainless steel bars I used for backing plates for the steering pedestal has made my cockpit bulletproof. Sorry, way too busy and dirty to even think about touching the camera for pictures.

The wife and I have done a shitload of work on the boat, but it is mostly stuff you don't see so we decided we needed a visual accomplishment, hence the decision to paint the hull. Once again our friend Graham had ideas. Graham used to build Sharks , a racing sailboat and they used automotive paint, Think Corvettes), as there is a ton of Sharks out there is seemed a viable, (read cheaper), alternative to marine $$$ paint.

So, the wife and I spent a month of weekends prepping the hull, that is sanding and filling gouges and war wound, then repeating because we always found more that we missed. A 38' hull has a lot of area.

The above is the hull sanded. The yellow is the factory primer that we sanded down to. The epoxy repairs are in the yellow and are pretty much transparent when cured. That tank on wheels beside the boat is the portable pump out station. Yes, we had a pump out on the hard.

That is the boat primed. That is my friend Graham showing off his bod. The paint and primer I got was close to a $1000 and is designed to be sprayed on. We had the spray gun cocked and loaded then the owner of the yard said no spraying was allowed. Drat. So we rolled and tipped I liked the results. Graham didn't.

That is the hull with two coats of white rolled and tipped on. next spring we will put the third coat on then launch.