We woke up this morning to a sky full of sunshine and a nice cool breeze blowing through the boat. Thank God. If we had to deal with another day of downpours and mud, I might have rolled right back over and said “Screw it, i’m done”. Instead we were ready to get our carpe diem on and sat down to get a plan together for the day. After Advil and coffee, of course.
We realized that we may have been a bit too aggressive on our task list yesterday and didn’t get everything done that we wanted to. By the end of the day, we hoped to have both hulls scraped down to fiberglass so we could sand and maybe apply our first coat of barrier paint today. However, as soon as we started scraping, we saw that there were multiple layers of paint to get through, making the job much more difficult than we had anticipated. Removing all the thru hulls took longer and was tougher than we thought as well. Then there was the hour or so I spent running around town to get some additional tools and supplies. Then there was the rain, which made everything go that much slower. We went to bed feeling a bit defeated and vowed to take a more realistic approach today. If we get more done than what’s on our list, then that’s just icing on the cake.
Day 3 goals (REVISED):
- Scrape & Sand the bottom to prepare it for the first layer of barrier paint to be applied tomorrow
- Clean all thru hull openings – scraping the remaining adhesive off to get it down to smooth gelcoat
- Clean and service the sail drives; reinstall and get the engine compartment back in order
- Stay on top of the mess & clutter so we can actually enjoy ourselves today and keep our sanity tonight
At 6:45am sharp, Noa and his crew started busting out the remaining scraping and sanding on the bottom. Thankfully he brought an extra guy so I didn’t have to scrape anymore. My arms just couldn’t handle another day. Without me dragging them down, they were able to scrape off the rest of the paint in the inner hulls in no time. Since we didn’t find any signs of blistering, we only had them scrape the inner hulls down to fiberglass and just rough up the existing paint on the outer hulls. No sense spending another two days scraping the outer hulls if we really didn’t need to. When we pull the boat to do it all again in another two years, we’ll scrape the outer hulls down before we repaint. We asked a lot of opinions before we decided to only do half the hull and were told by all that it was the right direction to head. Especially since we don’t have an extra two days to spare. We had them sand the seam especially well so that the two layers would blend seamlessly together.
Working guys = hungry guys, and I wanted to keep everyone well fed so they could power thru the day ahead of them. Look at that sandwich factory goin’ on. We’ve gone through two pounds of lunchmeat, a pound of cheese, and two loaves of bread over the past two days. Boom.
Aaron came back to service the sail drives. Since I wasn’t scraping, I offered to be his apprentice. The first thing he asked for was for me to make him a sandwich. Go figure. Good thing I had the system worked out. We got the sail drive pulled apart, cleaned, replaced some parts and put back together. Then we had to do it again on the other one. Damn catamaran… you have to do everything times two.
That kid is great. We were going on all day about how things in Australia are better than in the US. Like, everything, according to him. Except for the girls. He definitely seemed to prefer the girls here. His accent is so thick, I honestly couldn’t understand half the stuff he was saying today. He just got two new tattoos and asked if I could put lotion on them since I had just washed my hands. But it sounded like he wanted me to put lotion on his toes. Tattoos = Toes. There was a moment of awkward silence until I could decipher exactly what the hell he was asking me to do.
Good news is that not only did we get through ALL of the items on our list for today (such a sweet victory), but as a bonus, Matt drilled the holes for our underwater lights into the stern. Can’t wait to see how well these babies illuminate the clear blue waters below us at night. This was one of those ‘nice to have’ things that we were excited about in the midst of a week full of ‘need to have’ projects.
We’re super happy to go to bed tonight knowing that we accomplished everything on our list. Such a difference from last night, when we felt stressed, overwhelmed, and fearful that we’d be unable to get everything done in a week. We’re still exhausted, and I’ll probably still be doing my dishes in the shower again tonight, but we’re ending on a happy note, and you can’t beat that.
Day Four List:
- install all thru hulls
- 1-2 coats of barrier coat paint on the hull
- remove all of the old water and sanitation hoses (that’s going to be fun)
- possibly begin to wax and buff the boat
Here’s hoping that tomorrow will be as fulfilling as today! Until then…
