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.

Caulking -- step two

Tim & Jacob spent some time watching YouTube videos about caulking teak. The considered opinion was not to mask but to sand it away after it had set. So we'll see how it goes!

Renewing caulking -- step one

Jacob has been removing some of the the old caulking from the leak in the cockpit. The photo is actually Tim trying out the tool... we're using the Fein tool with a special blade. Works very well.

Then new caulking and sanding down the teak. Should make King Malu look great in the cockpit.

Deck repair and swimming platform

We brought the new stainless steel swimming platform for a trial fit this morning.  Since we no longer have an outboard motor on the transom this is something we can now have! As well as swimming from the boat it will also make boarding a lot easier when we are moored stern to...

It wasn't a 100% fit so a few minor changes needed, but it will be excellent when it's finished.

We also glass fibred the deck in the place where we had previously ground away for repair. This is the first time I had done any glass fibre work, though Tim had done some when he lived in South Africa.

I was very concerned that it was going to pad up the deck and make it lumpy. However it went much better than I expected, and we just need an epoxy skim layer and then treadmaster.

Nearly ready for spray painting

We have patched up spots in the hull ready for the antifouling. Wherever there are little pits we touch up with Awlgrip Hull Guard, which we now gather is no longer made. It's a very hard epoxy paint that adheres well to the hull and to which the antifouling adheres.

Having the right chemistry on all the paints so they work together is important.

 We have put up posts and ropes all around the hull ready for the drop clothes. We're looking for the right day/two days for the spray painting. We need two things to come together -- low wind and low humidity. It's essential the humidity is under 50% while we paint and for at least a few hours afterwards. The specification says for up to 96 hours afterwards but we'll never make that.

I did find last time we painted than unless it was under 50% for painting and about 4 hours afterwards then the paint would go matt rather than gloss.

The Honda outboard is now removed and the swimming ladder too... that is being rebuilt into a swimming platform so that getting on and off the boat when it's moored stern to will be a lot easier.

The stern will be hand painted to match in with what we already have.

On the port side there is a part of the deck that has slightly delaminated. So we have removed the flooring and ground back most of the glass fibre. Within the next few days we will lay in about 4 more layers of glass fibre matting and then new treadmaster.

The number of spots may look like King Malu has some sort of disease, but in fact they are all relatively minor. There are a few more on the rudder which always seems to get more problems.

What we do need to find is the right treatment for the propellor so that we don't get so much growth on that!