The last real update I published was in early June. Fortunately, just because I haven't posted any updates over the summer, that doesn't mean that there's been no progress. Still, we spent a fair bit of time this summer sailing, on our San Juan 21 QUASAR as well as OPB's. Two "big adventures" of the summer were helping my father-in-law deliver his Catalina-Morgan 440 from Annapolis up to Boothbay Harbor in early July, and then racing QUASAR in the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club's annual regatta, taking the little boat further out than she's ever been before.
Much of the work this summer wasn't particulary photogenic, nor really all that visible. One of the big projects was fitting the anchor roller assembly to the bow, which entailed building up significant "shims" of fiberglass and thickened resin, and then fairing the mess to the deck and hull sides.
A lot of time and effort was spent puzzling over ideal hardware placements (such as where to mount the spinnaker pole storage chocks), and then drillin' an' fillin' all the holes for the fasteners. This entailed placing the hardware, drilling the fastener holes, over-drilling the holes through the top skin, excavating coring from between the skins beyond the over-drilled hole, taping off the bottom of the hole from the inside, injecting the hole with thickened epoxy until full, sanding that flush after curing, and then placing the hardware again and re-drilling the fastener holes for the hardware. Hatches, cleats, deck organizers, rope clutches, bow and stern pulpits, handrails, etc... One neat trick I'm pretty proud of was custom bending my new stainless steel handrails to fit the curve of the cabin house. I did this using a forked tree in the back yard, and they really came out nice. I'll get a good pic once they're mounted...
Then there was prep for painting, including sanding the whole deck with belt sander and random orbit sander, as well as getting all the corners and edges and fiddly bits by hand, and more fairing where necessary. Then vacuuming, washing with soap and water, and finally wiping down with solvent.
Finally a big change today: the first coat of high-build primer went on!
It's far from a perfect job, and needs sanding and another coat or two before finish paint, but man, what a difference! Woo Hoo!
The first coat of primer was rolled on with a standard 1/4" nap roller, and where the roller couldn't get I used a cheapo foam brush.
For subsequent primer coats and for the top coats, I plan to use a fine 3/16" nap mohair roller and probably badger hair brush.
I should probably point out that I think of my boat more as a sailing machine than as a fine yacht. I just hope to do a better job than the last time the deck was painted by a previous owner (runs and sags all over the place), but the Hinckley paint shop I am not! ;-) I'll be happy if there are no obvious blemishes when viewed from 10 or 20 feet away....
FYI, I'm using Pettit Easypoxy one-part paints, and Kiwi-Grip for the non-skid (which will get spread with their proprietary roller). For the areas that don't take non-skid, I'm currently planning to dull the Easypoxy down with their Satin Additive, as I don't like a deck that glares at me. The final color will be "Mist Gray" for the Easypoxy and "Gray" for the KiwiGrip.
FWIW, here's the rest of the color scheme: the mast and boom were done in "Whisper Gray" AwlGrip in 2006; the topsides are currently a medium sort of battleship gray color, and rather oxidized, with a black(?) bootstripe. There are red/orange vinyl graphics on the stern quaters (e.g. see my avatar). The hailing port on the transom was done in white vinyl. I have no immediate plans to paint the topsides, but that is something that might happen in the long term, at which time my wife would like to do something other than battleship gray. In the mean time, I will try to clean them up and polish them as best I can.
The previous owner used VC Offshore on the bottom (which comes in blue, black, and red) - he would put on a coat of red, wet sand that, then one of blue, wet sand that, and then mix what was left over in the cans and put that on (a sort of purple). He gave me a gallon of blue with the boat, so I'll be putting that on the bottom for starters. Still, I hear that you go much faster if you paint the keel and rudder orange....
Previous canvas work (e.g. mainsail cover) was a maroon red that sort-of matched the hull side graphics, and did match the bottoms and sides of the berth cushions. The tops of the berth cushions are grey with a cross hatch pattern in red. They are in good condition and actually look pretty nice. The lee clothes, pipe berths, and pipe berth cusions are all standard pacific blue sunbrella. I've go to make a new mainsail cover, and add a sun cover to the roller furling jib leach and foot, and make up some other canvas as well, for which I am considering going with (some version of) white. (I might line the mainsail cover with mylar space blankets to improve the UV protection, which is less with white sunbrella than with darker colors.)
And for complete color disclosure, you should know that the 1.5 oz spinnaker is white, medium blue, and hot pink!, while the 0.75 oz chute is red, white and blue...
Last Modified October 2, 2007