Painting Time Again

I clearly haven't been posting much over the last few years as, looking back, it all seems to be about haul-outs and painting. In reality, it has been every 2 - 3  years which coincides with the life of the Brightsides top coat on the hulls.

So, out the boat came over Xmas and it was time again. The two coats of Brightsides from the last round were solid at the tops of the hulls, but were starting to pit all around the waterline; I guess that the constant wave action and floating debris have more affect than I would have thought.

Little Helper #2 sanding between coats (smiling or frowning?)

So, sanded the hulls down and filled the pits with Interlux Surfacing Putty. Spot primed with Interlux Prekote i.e all around the waterline. Sanded and more Prekote. Sanded and first coat of Brightsides. Sanded and second coat of Brightsides. Sanded and third coat of Brightsides (yes, managed three coats this time!). Then new numbers and name transfers.

Ready to go

But wait - that was just the easy stuff. Also removed the windows and got three coats of Brightsides on the cabin sides too (also replaced the lexan windows - more on that later). DONT EVER USE SILICON on windows or anything else!! It took a day's work just to scrape the silicon off those teeny tiny window edges.

I also pulled the center main beam, and refurbished the beam chocks. The chocks on the port side had small pockets of rot, so I cut them off and replaced them with solid G10 blocks - they will never give trouble again until the end of Creation (no pics - too busy). I then finished up with three coats of top coat (plus prep) under the beams.

Heading out. Good shot of the Trinidad bottom paint

I also removed all of the center decking, and found further cracks in the fillets of the center section (see, last haul out). So, I taped ALL of the fillets of the center section with 4" 10 oz glass tapes, and don't expect further issues (no pics, too busy). Also, found spots of soft, wet, wood in the rails along the cabin sides that support the decks. Dug those spots out and filled with thickened epoxy. Then all those projects had to be finished with two coats of primer, and three coats of top coat.

Still missing some decking

Last time I used Interlux Bottomkote Aqua for the bottom paint and it held up quite well over 2 and a half years. It had hard growth after one year, but it scraped off fairly easily. Being water based it was very easy to work with and paint on the boat, with easy wash up in water.

On the other hand, it did get heavy growth that needed cleaning off. The Wharram deep vee hull is very dependent on being clean to perform well, and I decided to bite-the-bullet this time and cough-up for the really expensive and super toxic Pettit Trinidad. I got it on special for $250, and put on two coats with extra on the edges. This stuff is toxic - it was impossible to be around without the vapor breathing mask and stunk out the car for weeks. It is supposed to last for two seasons, so I will let you know.

Ready to splash

I did other jobs too, but too much to describe here without getting boring. Just a note on ongoing maintenance - if I was a builder I would use G10 on all high-wear edges i.e. hatch sides, cockpit coamings, beam chocks, deck rails and net rails. These are the areas that have required repeated maintenance on Little Cat as they were made from unglassed plywood. If G10 were used in high wear parts of the boat, and it was painted in two-pack linear polyurethane, then one would have a relatively low maintenance boat.