Thursday

I’d planned to leave the primer spraying till later in the day, a nod to the expected conditions in the seldom-used (for painting) first shop bay, so I’d intentionally left the final-final prep work to be done in the morning.  However, with generally overcast skies and impatient virtue, I found I couldn’t resist the urge to get right to the spraying, so with an early start I finished the prep by solvent-washing the hull once more, this time with the paint system’s solvent, tacked off, and got to work mixing the primer for the day.

Over the next few hours, I applied four coats of epoxy-based finish primer to the hull, choosing, as usual, to spray the extra coat since I had product leftover, and I always find that it’s remarkably easy to sand through the primer with fewer coats.

With that, I left the boat to cure overnight.

Total time billed on this job today:   5.25 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  35°, partly cloudy .  Forecast for the day:  Mostly cloudy, 54°

Wednesday

I spent the morning sanding the high-build primer with 220 grit paper by machine and hand as needed.

After cleaning up and solvent-washing the hull, I went over it a couple times closely with a bright light to look for any areas requiring more sanding (a few) and to search for pinholes, placed that might need additional filling, or other such details, but was pleased to find nothing of note, so I could move forward with final preparations for finish primer.

Total time billed on this job today:   5.75 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  34°, cloudy with light snow, just a dusting.  Forecast for the day:  Cloudy, gradually becoming mostly sunny, 50°

Tuesday

Continuing with the final prep and masking, I covered the trailer with plastic as needed, wrapping the winch stand, tongue, and bow stop first, then taping more plastic to the hull just below the waterline, allowing it to drape over the remaining parts of the trailer.  I covered the plastic with a strip of masking paper and more tape at the waterline so the overspray wouldn’t flake off the plastic.

Afterwards, I cleaned the hull once more, this time with the proprietary solvent of the paint system, tacked off, and after various standard and miscellaneous preparations of paint equipment and sundries, I was ready to go with the high-build primer.

On this side of the shop, the sun comes through the windows in the morning, and can create problems with vison through the overspray and in the bright spots from the windows, so once preparations were complete I waited a little while for the sun to pass and, by about lunchtime, began the spraying, eventually applying three coats of epoxy-based high-build primer to the hull, leaving it to cure overnight.

Total time billed on this job today:  5.25 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  32°, mostly cloudy.  Forecast for the day:  Cloudy, 47°

Monday

As needed, I lightly sanded the hull where I’d applied fine fairing compound, bringing the small repairs flush with their surroundings.  At the transom, I finished up the fairing and sanding work around the larger hole repairs and removed the remaining paint from the last tight places, mainly around the gudgeons, before finish-sanding the whole transom up through 120 grit as with the rest of the hull.

On the bottom, I finished up the sanding work on the sail drive hole patch.

After another blowdown, vacuum, and sweep to clean up the boat and shop, I solvent-washed the hull to clean and remove dust and prepare it for the next steps.

Re-creating my waterline marks at the stem and stern from the measurements I recorded earlier, and with the boat previously leveled, I set up my horizontal beams bow and stern to restrike the waterline in my habitual way.  Once I’d set up and used the string to make a series of tick marks on the hull to designate the waterline, I masked to the marks.

Now I finished up any remaining masking, areas I’d left unmasked till the sanding was complete.  This included the underside of the rubrail, some fittings at the stem, and the various pulpit rails and other hardware on the transom.

Just before the end of the day, I rinsed off the trailer and floor to remove and settle any remaining sanding dust and prepare for the final masking and preparation steps and high-build primer next time.

Total time billed on this job today:  6 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  19°, clear.  Forecast for the day:  Sunny, 44°

Friday

Continuing with the hull surface prep, I sanded the entire boat twice more, with 80-120 grit paper on a 6″ finishing sander.  This helped further refine the surface and smooth it to the required level for high-build primer.

Next, I went around the hull and checked for any dings, scratches, or other areas requiring attention and, after cleaning as needed, applied a coat of fine fairing filler to these areas.  There were only a half dozen or so tiny dings and scratches to be found.

At the transom, I added more fairing compound as needed around some of the repairs I’d started earlier, and applied additional fairing to the patch over the engine sail drive hole in the bottom, just to take care of a few known and minor voids left from the last round of fairing compound there.

Now, I worked on the transom to remove the remaining paint and sand smooth all the tight areas around the hardware and stern pulpit rails that I couldn’t reach with a power sander, as well as some detail sanding elsewhere on the boat, including the stem.  There’d be more sanding work on the transom to come next time, along with additional light sanding on the other parts of the hull as needed, but for the moment I’d progressed things as much as possible.

Total time billed on this job today:  3.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  26°, clear.  Forecast for the day:  Partly sunny, 46°

Thursday

It was time to get down to business on the main aspect of this project:  The hull.  With the deck protected and masked and nothing standing in my way, I spent the day removing the existing coatings from the hull, sanding through two grits to get back to the original blue gelcoat and a suitable substrate for the new coatings to come.  The existing paint was a one-part product of undetermined type, with primer beneath, and was generally easy to remove, with no surprises underneath; in fact, the hull was in excellent condition all around, save for a few shallow scrapes and the like that would either disappear during the next round of final finish sanding, or with some minor fill work.  The repairs I’d made on the transom would require a bit more final work, but I already knew that.

Starting at the bow and working aft on the starboard side, then around the transom and back to the port bow, I removed all the paint and vinyl striping by the end of the day, other than some tight areas on the transom that would require hand work.

Total time billed on this job today:  5.25 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  22°, mainly clear.  Forecast for the day:  Patchy fog, then mostly sunny, 46°

Wednesday

For future reference in re-establishing the waterline, should it be sanded away during the hull prep, I made several reference measurements at the stem and stern, using conveniently-mounted U-bolts to measure from at both transom corners and at the stem.  I noted these measurements for later edification.

The boat was slightly crooked on the trailer bunks, and thus a bit out of level from side to side.  There was no way to reposition the boat on the trailer itself, so I jacked up the port side as needed to level the boat, and blocked the trailer under both sides to supplement the rear trailer jacks and better stabilize the trailer for the upcoming work.

At the bow, I put some blocks beneath the hull for support since I needed to retract the bow chock for access to the hull, and the blocking would limit any tendency of the hull to move around during the sanding work to come.  I removed the extra-wide bow chock supports from the metal bracket to increase clearance.

At the stern, I removed the folding portion of the boarding ladder from the starboard side, and masked from within an outboard wiring hole on the port upper corner after removing its temporary plastic cover.  Then, after cleaning the rubrail and edge of the deck, I covered the decks with plastic and heavily masked along the rubrail above the hull.  There’d be more masking required for paint at the transom to cover the various hardware, but I waited on that for now since any tape would probably get damaged during the sanding operations.

Total time billed on this job today:  3 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  22°, high overcast.  Forecast for the day:  Mostly cloudy, chance of snow in the evening, 36°