April 22, 2020

Skeedeen 2020 1

Wednesday

A week or so back, taking advantage of a nice day and knowing the project would soon begin, I removed the winter cover and frame from the boat.  This also allowed me to get the soda blasting contractor lined up to strip the bottom, a job that was supposed to have occurred back in the fall, but weather and other circumstances intervened and at the time we mutually agreed to postpone the work till spring.

Over a period of two days–the first of which was to wrap the boat to contain the debris, and the second to do the actual paint removal–the contractor stripped many years of bottom paint from the hull, bringing it back to bare gelcoat (green) and some remnants of an old barrier coat.  This left just a narrow band right below the boottop for me to scrape later.

This all worked out just in time, as I was ready to move Skeedeen into the shop for this year’s round of varnish maintenance (unfortunately more than either the owner or I had hoped for, since many areas seem to have been blown off by freeze/thaw cycles–more on this in the immediate future) and a few other small jobs.

Total time billed on this job today:  1 hour

0600 Weather Observation: 30°, clear. Forecast for the day:  Sunny, increasing clouds, windy, 41°