Black weekend

One evening this week, we left work early and went to Portland to put a second coat of paint on the starboard side of the cockpit. With that done, our plan for this weekend was to put a coat of ablative bottom paint on over the barrier coat, paint the port side of the cockpit floor and, if time permitted, clean the hull since once it is in the water, we won't be able to do that very effectively.

We donned our Tyvek suit on Saturday morning and began applying the MarPro two-year black ablative bottom paint. The green barrier coat had gone on easily but the bottom paint, because it was much thicker, didn't.  In fact, it took us about twice as long to apply the black bottom paint than it did the green barrier coat. This is what it looked like half-way through finishing the bottom.

The boat next to ours in the top photo is just four inches away at the deck.  They do park 'em close at Portland Riverside! That neighboring boat is a 1964 Chris Craft Sea Skiff, bought a couple of years ago from its original owner and now virtually abandoned. It hurts us to be that close to a dead Chris-Craft Sea Skiff.

Several weeks ago we removed some of the wood trim in the cockpit and Frances refinished it. Today we reinstalled those pieces and they look much better now.

Saturday was a long day but before we left, we painted the port side of the cockpit floor. Frances had masked it perfectly, as she always does.

Then we finally went home to a darn tasty meatloaf, a great safety food for us when we are too tired to cook.

Sunday dawned cool and damp and that wasn't good, since we planned to put a second coat on the port cockpit. When we got to the boat, the Saturday paint wasn't hard enough to repaint. So, Frances began packing up and moving the winter stuff off the boat and we began cleaning the hull with PolyPrep prior to applying PolyGlo.

But to apply the PolyPrep, we needed water to rinse it and there is none available in our storage shed. We found an available hose and hauled about 25 gallons or so in buckets the 500 feet distance back to the boat.  We dumped the buckets into our boat's water tank, hooked up a hose to our new deck faucet, turned on the pump and went to work.

Thanks to John and Bob on A-Dock for this stuff.  It takes a little work but it removed dirt, mold and other discolorations on the hull.  Next weekend we, apply the PolyGlo.

At this point, we have only three weekend days to go before the boat goes into the water.  There is still lots to do but we'll get it done.