Topcoat

Spray painting the hull is not the easiest job in the world... and when the wind blows, holding down the 'tent' so it doesn't blow away makes it more difficult.

Not quite finished yet... a little more to do to make it close to perfect. Then a seven day wait for the paint to really harden before we put her back in the water.

Epoxy undercoat

We have been watching out for the right weather for a couple or weeks or more. 'Right weather' for painting is low winds (under 10 knots) and low humidity (under 50%). Monday and Tuesday look like being those days... or Monday and Wednesday.

Anyway, we started today at 07:00. Yes, 07:00! Too early for me really.

First thing was a major job masking everything and creating a 'tent' around King Malu so that no paint reached other boats, cars or people!

Then time to check the humidity (was 47% and dropping), mix paint (this is a three part epoxy paint) and start the compressor.

Then time to start. Tony (Paul's Dad) is a pretty expert spray painter. Paul is actually very good himself, but had only done cars not boats till today.

First a sample patch to check everything.

Then time for masks and some serious spraying!

Once started it went pretty quickly and created a firm even coat of epoxy on which we will spray the Awlcraft 2000 top coat.

Basically all done in a couple of hours. Very much quicker than painting by hand.

Then time for lunch and...

...raising the curtain so that they don't blow over during the night.

Stop Thief!

Today I was over at Dyrenia at church and got a phone call from Tim to say overnight that King Malu had been broken into and 'turned over'. Fortunately he meant that the boat was not upside down, which would have been a catastrophe but it was bad enough that everything had been taken out and tossed around in the cabins and saloon. They were looking for money, but found none as we keen no money on board!  It was, however, bad enough that they took some tools. Not valuable, but very irritating.