Last minute bottom paint

[Keith]

Never paid much attention to this before, but I'm in the yard with a new bottom job right now. The thing I'm curious about is that they never moved the boat from the blocks under the keel, so there's no bottom paint in four spots. They plan to slap on some bottom paint when the lift picks it up off the blocks, on the way to the water. At best, I'll only have one coat there, and who knows if it'll survive being dunked in the water within minutes of application. It's Petit Trinidad SR if that makes any difference.

The yard where most of my work has been done before never applied paint on the way to splashing, leading me to believe that they moved the blocks and painted the keel bottom before splashing.

Comments?

 

[Capn Chuck]

This is the way it is done in every yard we have dealt with and we have dealt
with many up and down the east coast. You could of course, go to the yard and
tell them you want the boat re-blocked and painted. But then you must pay them
to lift the boat and re-block. I am sure for an additional fee they would be
happy to do that. Our boat is done the way you describe on every haul out and
in over 30 years it has never been an issue. Chuck

 

[Tidahapah]

Keith,
Pretty normal procedure evey where I have hauled my boat here in Australia.
Once lifted on the travel lift or props out when on conventional slipway a last coat is given to the uncovered spots.
You can all ways tell what spots they were,as next time out they have a different colour and a little more growth.
Never bad enough not to do it this way though.
Costs a lot to get lifted just to paint a few spots a day before.

Benn

 

[Keith]

That seems to be tne concensus. Petit actually publishes some numbers about time to recoat then splash, and they're significant, like 24 hours to splash, but eveybody seems to ignore them. The cost for an additional lift at this yard was $75. We'll see what it looks like next haulout in a year.

One other experimenet. I used transducer paint as usual on one of my depth sounder transducers. The other I smeared with Tef-Gel. I'm thinking it will work just as good as the paint. We'll see on that one too.

 

[FF]

Unless you are using a sounder for Contour Navigation , where extreme depths will be recorded , most sounders can work thru most glass , but not cored structure.

No hole , no growth nothing to leave on a grounding.

 

[Forkliftt]

Great article you posted in the most recent SSHR newsletter Keith.
Steve

 

[Keith]

Thanks, but which one? I've got the March issue in, just waiting for the layout so I can proof it. Starting with the April issue, my deadline moves back to the 15th. and it should be mailed by the 25th. of the month prior to the issue. So for April, you actually should have it before April! Now, we'll see... the publisher doesn't seem to take his deadline seriously. It's always supposed to be out by the 1st., but sometimes I don't see the proof until the 10th!

 

[Forkliftt]

The article on proper blister repair. What a process.Steve

 

[Keith]

Yea, it was. I've got photo documentation of every step as well. Used to be on a website somewhere that vanished. I probably should post the series on my Flickr site.

 

[Forkliftt]

Thats a good idea. May need to add a "System Operation" to the site that documents repairs that have good pics of the process. Sharing that info with members could be a real plus. To keep it civil, we would not need comments or input.*Steve