3.2 – Saturday

We each looked at the weather forecast this morning and had the same thoughts. The coming week is going to be pretty rain-free, although Tues and Weds night it’s getting down to 30°F. It looks like we’ll be able to bottom paint! We need at least two warm, sunny days for painting, 3 would be better. Our goal is to get 2 coats of barrier paint on Monday, another barrier coat plus a hot-coat of bottom paint on Tuesday, the last coat of bottom paint on Thursday, hopefully the yard can put us in the slings on Friday, then we can paint the areas that are currently on blocks and have them put us in the water on Monday 3/11.

If nothing else, this post will demonstrate how boat plans change by the day!

3.4 – Monday

It’s supposed to rain tonight so we don’t really want to paint today (plus it was misting all morning). Wednesday will be too cold for any painting, but Thursday and beyond should be perfect. We’ll try to get a coat or two on tomorrow. We had hoped to apply our final coat of bottom paint on Thursday but unless we do three coats in a day, that plan is out.

3.5 – Tuesday

Today’s forecast got colder every time we checked it. We planned on doing the first layers of barrier coat today, but we need steady temps above 50°F for the barrier coat, which is an epoxy-based paint.

Instead, Kyle tried to do computer work but after he dropped a couple things and swore at them (the cold was making him clumsy and that was making him irritated!) I told him to pack up his gear so I could drive him to the library. I stayed home to meal-prep soup in the slow cooker, given the weird electricity here I didn’t want to leave it without supervision. It’s so cold that if I accidentally chopped up a finger while chopping veggies, I wouldn’t have been able to feel it. I finally hit my misery limit with the perpetual cold, so I picked Kyle up and we went thrifting then headed to Bill and Betsey’s. They’d offered us a warm place to sleep, and with temps around 30°F we’d be idiots not to accept. We stayed with them two nights since Wednesday was even colder.

3.7 – Thursday

Today is the day! We’re actually painting!

The gritblast took the hull down to gelcoat, so we need to add protection from water intrusion. We’re rolling on 3 layers of barrier coat, which is a 2-part epoxy paint. We’ve purchased SeaHawk Tuff Stuff, we’ll do a layer of gray, then white, then gray. Kyle has a lot of skills in life, but painting isn’t one of them, so I plan on doing all the painting while he plays a supporting role.

We first had to wash down the hulls, then mask off the water line. Kyle didn’t start mixing the 2-part barrier coat until around 11:30, and it needs to sit for 20-30 minutes, so I didn’t start painting until around noon. About 15 minutes in my arms were protesting, I realized there was no way I could do two full coats by myself in one day, but we only had one paint tray so Kyle headed to Lowe’s. As he was leaving I made a joking plea for French fries! I hadn’t eaten lunch and I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat until I was done painting, due to the nature of epoxy I needed to work as fast as possible.

The barrier coat has a pot life of 3 hours, but around the 1 hour mark it got really thick and sticky. It was still workable, but it took serious effort to roll it on.

When Kyle walked up with McDonalds I was like “Really!?” Kyle said he didn’t feel like cooking! Which is fine, and I was grateful for the nugs and fries, but I practically froze my ass off on Tuesday meal-prepping lunches for us so all we had to do was heat and eat. Kyle, apparently, forgot!

Kyle had mixed up 1 gallon of barrier coat, which should cover one hull. However, that gallon nearly covered both hulls, so we must be applying it thin. Kyle mixed up 1 quart and we used that to finish the gray layer.

After that, he mixed up a gallon of white and we applied it thickly to the first hull, making sure to use the full gallon. However, when he went to mix the second gallon, he found he had barely 2 quarts of paint left. So it looks like our mixing bucket is not measuring correctly, and now we have an imbalance in barrier coat layers. Awesome.

We rolled on two thick, sticky layers of barrier coat today. I don’t think I’ve had a more physically punishing day in my life.

3.8 – Friday

When I woke up this morning, my arms were hurting so much I grabbed the phone to look up the symptoms for rhabdomyolysis – I had briefly read about it years ago and I didn’t remember the specifics, but yesterday’s intense repetitive motion could cause it, and rhabdo is pretty serious. Luckily, it looks like I’m just a wimp, so I chomped down some ibuprofen with my coffee this morning.

We were discussing how much barrier coat to mix up when Sean  (the boat yard manager) walked by. I was already poking around the pinholes, and I wanted his opinion on them so that was great timing. The gritblasting opened up some voids and some pinholes. I filled all the voids with epoxy before we began painting, but I expected the barrier coat would seep into the pinholes. It didn’t.

I forget his exact words, but Sean said something to the effect of “you’ve been working so hard to do things the right way, do you really want to give that all up now because you might lose a day?” The entire reason for applying barrier coat is to prevent water from getting to the gelcoat. These pinholes provide a path for water. We need to take care of them, which means instead of painting today, we’re filling pinholes with epoxy.

As we got started, I told Kyle I expected it would take at least 4 cups of epoxy to fill the voids. If you’re not familiar with epoxy, it’s a mix of two substances that requires a very specific ratio. Each one comes with a metered pump top, you just add one pump of each to your cup and you get the perfect mix every time. Since it sets up fast, I usually only mix one pump of each. Anyway, I wasn’t wrong, I used at least 4 cups of epoxy. Except it was more like 24 cups. And it took literally all day.

I was filling pinholes until dark today. I am getting really tired of looking at this boat’s bottom.