The Bottom

I never seem to amaze myself with my ability to do things that my body and mind tell me not to do. Like crawling around under a sailboat scraping and sanding several layers of nasty paint off of the bottom.

We had no choice really, the boat had Interlux's Bottomcoat XXX for antifouling paint, and it won't survive life in the tropics. I emailed the company, and they said so. Lucky for me though, the last owner kinda of neglected the bottom paint a little, and the paint came off relatively easy with a sharp paint scraper and a putty knife. It still took several hours over four days to get it done, but it could have been worse. The guy down the end of the parking lot is grinding his off; apparently it was in better condition than mine. So, after all that scraping, I had the wonderful privilege of spending a further several hours over 3 more days sanding off the last remaining little bits of paint, and I thought scraping sucked, turns out that was the fun part.

During the process I came across some weird things in the hull, and having never stripped the paint off of a sailboat hull before, I had no idea what I was looking at. The first thing was that there seemed to be 3 layers of gelcoat. A white layer that was very thin, a grey or translucent layer under the white, that was a little thicker, and finally a thick layer that was the same colour as the hull sides. That should have been my clue, however, since I wasn't told that the boat already had an epoxy barrier, I didn't put two and two together. So I let the cat out of the bag, but basically little things added up, and just to make sure, I shanghaied George and asked him his opinion. He agreed, and pointed out the lines on the bottom of the keel that mimic the shipping cradle, which I had never seen, until now of course. There is another Bayfield down the parking lot that has the original cradle, and then it all made sense.

So, that's great news. The hull is in great shape, and it was epoxy barrier coated, which kept it in better shape. The bad news, is that I sanded half of it off. So I guess that means that I get to epoxy the hull again. I just don't have to put on as many coats.

And the pics; This is where it began.

And after I scrape with paint scraper and putty knife.

And then we sand for hours...

But don't she look pretty.

There are a couple of little holes that need to be filled, and a little hand sanding, but other than that, she is really for epoxy and new bottom paint in the spring. I haven't decided which epoxy system to use, or which bottom paint, but I am leaning toward WEST system epoxy, and Interlux's Micron CSC.

And on; tomorrow I go to Pride Marine in Kingston to pick up my new rigging, heavy duty bow roller, 2 burner stove with oven, and battery boxes for the golf cart batteries that will eventually get installed. Just like Xmas morning.