"Racing" stripes

Got kicked off while I was posting the other day. So here's the last in the painting series. The stripes. After we completed the water line stripe, we decided the top stripe didn't need to be as wide as previous. She looks so beautiful now with the water reflecting from her hull. Something we had never seen before, with the old oxidized paint. When it stops raining (one day) we will try to get a shot from the dinghy as Atlantic Grace floats at the dock.

Antifouling

Antifouling done. Yes, that is a red patch on the bottom starboard. But it's all antifouling. Who's looking except the fish?

White hull

When she was all white, we thought we were finished. But we had a bit of time, so we kept going.

Painting... painting... painting

Next came the full coat of gray. We painted from the bottom up past the water line then from the top down past the water line, thus ensuring extra coats where

needed. And, man, did she ever look like a battleship all in gray.

Incredible.

Painting

Here's the bottom first with the clear sealer over the steel then with the first coat of white

primer. You can see the yellowing of the sealer as it went over the older paint above the water line.

Scraping

When Cos first saw what he was going to have to do, he was a bit discouraged. But hard work paid off and in just over a week, he had the bottom clean and ready for painting. Long, hard days.

Haul Out

There she is, getting lifted from the water. It's just an unnatural sensation, seeing your boat floating... on air.














There was a bit of ice damage at the water line but for the most part, even the anti-fouling held up very well. The black you see is the last coat we put on 7.5 years ago before launching.














She's a heavy boat. at 44,000 lbs, it looked almost as though the wheels on the travel lift were going to bust.

Working Vacation

We were 'on the hard' for a couple weeks and just relaunched this past Monday. It was time (way past time) for some bottom maintenance and we had yet to put our own paintjob on the hull above the water line. So out it came. While toddler and I spent just over a week at the cottage, dear Cos scraped the bottom of the boat down to bare steel. Then, once grandparents were available to stay with our princess, I joined Cos for the painting portion of the project. It was quite a job. On bare steel, Cos applied an epoxy sealer. Then it was three coats of epoxy primer on the bottom and two coats of epoxy primer on the sides. We overlapped the top and bottom coats to thicken it up at the water line. Then we applied a two part epoxy finish coat from the water line up. Antifouling went on the bottom next, with a double coat near sensors and at the water line. Finally, we used a one part finish paint to add back the 'racing stripe' (LMAO) and an additional stripe just above the water line. We always thought she was a pretty boat. But, my goodness, what a fresh coat of paint can do! Just beautiful. It's like falling in love all over again.

I'll post some pictures of the work from haul-out to completion.