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Tuesday

During the morning, I finished up the bottom stripping, taking care of the last large section on the port side, then moving all the jackstands and removing the paint in those areas as well.

When the boat hauler delivered the boat to the shop earlier, he’d not been able (or willing) to raise the bow of the boat enough to block the boat level; the forward end of the keel ended up a little lower than the aft end because of the limitations of the boat trailer.  This didn’t necessarily pose any immediate problems, but frankly it was irritating me since it just looked bad and was poor practice, and later I knew I might want the boat to be properly leveled in all directions for some of the interior work.

Fixing the issue was straightforward:  I used the forward jackstands to raise the boat enough so I could slip in a taller block to raise the forward end to an equal height as the existing aft blocking, and  to bring the base of the keel level along its long length.  Since this keel was parallel to the waterline, this also meant that for all intents and purposes the boat was level fore and aft.

Afterwards, I leveled the boat side to side as well.

The bottom gelcoat was in good condition overall, but there were various little dings, scrapes, and pockmarking spread around the area–all the things one expects in a 50 year-old (or thereabouts) boat.  After surface preparations, I applied some epoxy fairing compound here and there on the bottom to address these minor surface issues.

Total time billed on this job today:  6 hours

0600 Weather Observation:
30°, cloudy.  Forecast for the day:  clouds, possible light wintry mix, then wintry mix to rain overnight

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Monday

The owner elected to strip the bottom and start fresh, so I made this my first task.  After setting up and getting ready, I spent the day stripping all the old bottom paint from the starboard side, and a bit over half of the port side.  I removed the bulk of the old paint with a carbide scraper and finished up with two sanding passes and two sanding grits to remove the remnants and finalize the bottom surface.  The substrate was in good condition overall.

I’d finish up the last section next time.

Total time billed on this job today:  8 hours

0600 Weather Observation:
15°, clear.  Forecast for the day:  Sunny, 37°

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Wednesday

Halcyon, a S&S Sailmaster 22 (year of build unknown), has been in the same family for over three decades, and while she’d been well maintained throughout that time, her age and normal wear and tear had begun to catch up, and the owners wanted to make some lasting improvements to bring the boat through the next years of use.  The proposed scope of the project would focus mainly on the decks and interior, as the owner had had the hull painted with one-part paint fairly recently and was happy with its current appearance.

One of the first items on the rather extensive work list  was to assess the condition of the bottom and determine what, if anything, was required there.    Now that I was gearing up to begin work on the boat, I took an opportunity to look over the bottom.  I chose to do this early on so we could determine what course to take before diving into other parts of the project.

(Note:  all photos clickable for full size)

The bottom featured numerous layers of antifouling paint, mostly in fair to good condition, but with the inevitable evidence of past areas where the paint had flaked away and been painted over.

In the flattest, least-supported sections of the boat–that is, the after sections of the boat, starting roughly amidships and running towards the deadwood–the paint had cracked and begun to crack, a normal condition seen in areas of hull flex, but mostly the paint remained well-adhered, though there was substantial buildup.  The flaking issue was neither catastrophic nor widespread.

Given the existing condition, and the intended use of the boat, at a minimum my suggestion was to scrape and heavy-sand the loose areas as needed before repainting, simply to ensure reasonable adhesion of the new coating.  No one likes stripping bottoms, but certainly it was something to be considered here for the long-term, as it appeared it had never been done before. If this was the chosen course, it was a job I planned to take care of first, before moving on to the rest of the project.