February 4, 2025
Danusia Phase 2-24
Tuesday
Starting now at the starboard bow, I continued the sanding work on the starboard hull, working my way towards the stern to remove the old coatings.
On the port side, while sanding early on near the waterline, I’d found additional blue layers beneath the existing boottop, and kept sanding till all the blue was gone, leaving the white gelcoat behind it. Eventually I realized that this was an old gelcoat boottop hidden beneath all the new paint (primers and the painted blue boottop that I’d repainted for the owner when the boat was in my shop previously). I felt committed to removing it all along the port hull, but now, when I revealed the same thing on the starboard side, I knew I didn’t have to remove all the old blue; it was a lot of extra work to remove it, but was unnecessary. In these photos, you can see that blue gelcoat boottop behind and beneath the painted layers of the current boottop–the old stripe was higher at the bow (first photo), and lower by the time I’d moved somewhat aft.
The point of this description is to explain why there’s still blue showing on some parts of the hull after sanding on this side. More would likely get sanded off during the next sanding round, but I saw no need to remove it all like I’d done on the previous side.
In any event, by the end of the day I’d worked aft to the starboard quarter, about 10′ forward of the transom.
I also sanded most of the bottom on this side, scuffing with coarse paper to remove marine growth and loose paint.
Total time billed on this job today: 7.75 hours