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The Hull: Bottom
The bottom was in fair
condition. The paint is Baltoplate, favored by racers
everywhere. It is in decent condition, but the bottom
is not race perfection. If you want to use E-Paint on
the bottom, I suspect all the Baltoplate and other coatings
will need to be removed anyway, so the condition of the
paint and smoothness of the bottom is hardly relevant.
But the bottom was pretty fair and smooth, and certainly
doesn't need a lot of work either way.
The rudder and fairing
strips were in good condition with no particular problems to
note. Paint and fairing compound were loose over the
fairing strips, since water tends to get in there and cause
failure. This is not a critical thing and is easy to
fix.
The ballast-hull joint had
weeped, as is normal, and the bubbling and unfairness
visible at the seam is the result of more fairing compound
and paint failure. The seam itself looked tight and
good, with no particular problems. The weeping is a
fact of life, as this seam is rarely perfectly watertight
and is dynamic in its stress. Baltoplate turns ugly
green colors where small rivulets run when the boat is
hauled, and these discolorations make things look awful, but
it's not nearly as bad as all that.
The tops of the keel bolts
looked OK in the bilge as far as I could tell, but the bilge
was full of several inches of water, so there was only so
much I could see. But there aren't any indications of
serious problems there, or with the seam at the top portion
of the add-on fiberglass keel just below the garboard.
Continue with
the deck---> |
