Weather report?

I had taken three days off which looked like the first two would be fine and the third one would fine for the morning. This morning I got up and at 8am checked weather.com and was thrilled to see the forecast to show fine all day. So I went down to the boat. Tim was already there doing some fine sanding on the deck. The weather looked great.

We cleaned up the deck and then I started doing the second top coat for the grey band, grey stripe and the stern. It was much better with Tim there as he moved the trestles we had borrowed from another boat and I kept painting.

At 11:00 it became overcast. About 11:30 it started to spit with rain. Oh no... but then it stopped and I finished the painting. While I was doing that Tim looked at the 'ding' on the starboard side that the previous owner had claimed was superficial. It is superficial, but not as superficial as he had claimed. We will have to dig out the bad, refill with glass-fibre and epoxy and then overfill with gel-coat.

Tim covered the hole with plastic sheet and then taped it all round to stop water getting into the hull.

Tim went back to the office and I cleaned up and went home for an early lunch. It rained. I looked at the weather forecast again... it now showed showers all day. Bad news.

I went back to the boat after lunch. It seemed that the polyurethane paint had set sufficiently that I could remove the blue masking tape. She looked great.

I then remembered that I had intended hand painting the stern grey stripe so returned home to get an artist brush for that.

Just as I was starting that, Tim came down and admired the new paintwork. She really is getting to look great. He suggested getting a signwriter to re-do the name and port information as if we use adhesive lettering it would not fully cover the old and not look as good as signwriting over the old.

I was not liking the hand painting the grey stripe at the stern. I had tried using masking tape but could not get it to follow the line. Tim got the masking tape and with added pressure persuaded the tape to follow the line. I painted the grey stripe [undercoat]. Great team - almost every time something I cannot do Tim does and vice versa.

Next is to lightly sand and polish the hull and then paint the anti-fouling. All we need is four days of no rain.