Waiting
Five weeks ago, I asked the marina to pull the boat out for spring prep. It was early enough that I hoped to beat the rush of boats also wanting to get ready for a spring launch. I had purchased the boat 6 years ago and, according to what I’d read, the bottom should be stripped. So I asked the marina to do that. They told me that the bottom didn’t need to be stripped. Good news!
So I asked the marina to smooth the bottom and check for blisters. I have little upper body strength and I don’t like spending my time with a 30-lb vacuum sander over my head. I also figured, with the schedule I’ve had lately at work, it would be much faster to have the marina do the work.
That was 5 weeks ago.
We’ve had weather delays. The wife of the guy who was working on it had a baby.
And we had communication errors.
See, when I told them to smooth the bottom, I meant that I thought there were blisters to be taken care of, and the paint was pretty wavy because I’d just been slapping it on. But the head worker thought I meant that I wanted the paint sanded off, so he started to do that.
Now, I don’t know why he did that, especially after he told me that it didn’t need to be stripped. But that’s what he was doing. And that was taking so long, because the paint was on there hard, so they called in someone with – not a sandblaster – but a bead blaster? Anyway, same idea. They stripped the paint.
Well, that did open up any blisters. But it also meant that there would need to be a barrier coat put on. At first I told them I’d take care of that. But as the time went on, I again figured that it would be faster to have them take care of it. But I don’t know. They haven’t even gotten that far.
I stopped by tonight. They have about 2/3rds of the bottom prepped. Meaning that it’s had the filler put on and it’s been sanded smooth. They still have half the keel and all of the rudder to do.
The good news is, I won’t have to have this done for about 10 more years.
Will I have the boat for next week’s race? A week after racing season has started? I hope so!
Stripped boat bottom