Or rather in prepping limbo as one of the key themes of hell according to Dante is that everyone in hell actually secretly wants to be there, while I very VERY VERY much do not want to be where I am at now (this joke I feel is actually way funnier in my head than on paper. I READ BOOKS DONTCHA KNOW)
Basically a week or two ago in a fit of misplaced energy I decided I was going to repaint the boat (slightly prompted by a comment from someone saying ‘your boat looks like it already sank’. In fairness it was covered in salmon blood from a recent outing but still).
In a move that can be described as ‘classic matthew’ I completely underestimated the amount of work it would be and started throwing myself into it with gusto, scrubbing and taking off stuff. I had decided to redo everything in two-part paint as the gelcoat was totally knackered – however this was stymied by the fact you can no longer buy it in Canada. Shit. So one part it was.
I was supposed to start painting on Saturday with the help of my friend Jenn (who is an angel), but instead we never got to it, as we found a million holes I needed to further epoxy and sand, extra stuff to remove from the deck (half of which was a huge pain) and sanding took a million years. Also it then rained on Sunday, so I had to tape up all the holes.
So at this point the deck has nothing on it, the cockpit has several large holes from various things like speakers etc being removed and the boat is half sanded. I’m probably 30 hours in and not a lick of paint on yet. Sigh. And probably cannot do any actual painting until the weekend.
I topped it all off by disconnecting my anchor from the chain to move it and then accidentally dropping it off the boat. So now my anchors at the bottom of the harbour in ~25 feet of murky water. Goddamn it.
Attempting to grapple it up with a grappling hook just saw me snagging a TV that has seen WAY better days.
On the plus side, the non-skid portion (which I am doing last) should be way way easier. So that’s nice.
Here are some pictures of the ‘progress’
PAINTING SUCKS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa
Anyway here are some photos I took recently, to finish on a more positive note
Oh no! Cosmetics come last. Who told you your boat looked like it already sunk? Sounds like a Youtube commenter – there are a lot of no birds and trolls over there.
Painting the deck is a big project, and now’s not the time to start it – our 8 months of rain begins in just a week or two! We’d like to do our non-skid too, but we’ll do it in small stages – one section at a time. Each section small enough to fit in a rain gap (3-4 day window) while still keeping the boat commissioned for weekend sails.
Hah, it was an acquaintance at a raft-up and it was meant mostly in jest. It was true though – though the blood everywhere didn’t help.
I think I can squeeze it in next weekend as all the preps now done – doing it during one of the previous 120 days of dry weather would probably have been smarter, but oh well!
painting is 90% prep and 10% actually painting…good luck.
And agree with Patrick: old salt taught me that project priorities are SSCC: seaworthiness, safety, comfort, cosmetics……..
Thanks Bruce! And yeah, I always heard it as ‘Safe boat, Working Boat, Pretty Boat’ but same principle!