Barrier Coat

Hard....tooo.....typee.....with..soreeee..arms......... Well as TIH had spend 15 years on the hard (i.e. out of the water) this was a good time to put on the required number of barrier coats to reduce the risk of osmosis. Intelux 2000E comes highly recommended and so far has worked out. The photo is of Jim E. (Boat guru, everything boat related expert etc. etc.) putting on the first coat. After that it was gray coat, white coat, gray coat etc. We got 5 coats on today but as the last one was done in the dark I cannot vouch for its completeness.



Four coats on, fifth going on the the dark by, painting by braille.



Cutlass bearing in, shaft installed and rudder shoe and gudgeon dry fitted. Usual saga with cutlass bearings. TIH uses a 6 inch long 2 inch diameter bearing. After inserting it about two inches it put up a fight, so the usual cruiser hi-tech solution was employed. A number of whacks with a suitable sledge hammer convinced it to behave. Removal in a few years will be less that fun, but that is why God invented sawzalls'.

The daily grind.....

There is not a lot you can say about grinding the hull of a 42ft sailboat. When I recover the full use of my arms I may post more details.

Getting blasted.......

One subject that strikes fear into the heart of most boat owners is the term "hull blisters" also knows as "boat pox". Whitby's have little or no history of such a problem but it pays to take precautions. Painting on a barrier coat before applying anti-fouling is one such option. The fact that the hull had been dried for such a long time made this an ideal opportunity to do this.

First the old anti-fouling had to come off. Wet sandblasting is a good way to do this as long as the operator know what he is doing and avoids damaging the underlying gel coat. It all worked extremely well.