Weekend Boat work, Part 2...

At the last minute I decided to drive up to the Seattle area and spend the weekend, since I was up the previous week working on the boats I decided to go up again and help get them in sailing condition. I drove up on Friday night and the weather was going to be perfect, lots of sun and warm. The drive up was easy and the mountains and volcanoes looked cool still covered with snow. Since we had fixed most of the damage to the hulls, we focused on the trailers and painting the water line on the black hulled boat. We had sanded the old blue line and we thought we would paint it a dark blue, but when at the store looking at paint, we found a color shifting blue paint so we said lets see what that looks like.

Back at the boat, we sprayed the paint and it looked like crap. A very translucent sparkle blue was all we got, plus it ran badly. We thought it would take many layers to build-up the color, then Ray read the label. Spray over a black undercoat.... Well since we were spraying over a primer coat it looked bad, so off to the store again for a can of black paint. A quick sand and Ray sprayed to black then sprayed the blue, it looked really cool this time. Looking straight at it it has a blue color, but at an angle the colors are everything from green to purple and even copper. Ray liked it so much he wants to paint the whole hull in that type of paint. The idea was to have one boat red and the other blue. Also we talked of graphics on the side or transom, a dragon and sea horse.

Once we did the paint, we turn our attention to the trailer. When we took the one boat off the trailer to work on it, the supports were so rusted that  two broke off. We had to build a new cradle to support the boat so Ray got some wood and we fashioned a new set of supports. Then we flipped the white boat over and onto the trailer. The supports worked perfect and we decided to get the rig out and see if there was any issues with that. A quick check and once the lines were in order, I put the mast on and held it while Ray fastened the bolts and attached the stays. We put the jib on and looked at the main, but we couldn't find the spinnakers. But the rig was fine and the boats was ta that point ready to sail if we wanted.

There is some more work to do, but the boat at least could be sailed now. The second boat still needs a little work and the sails for that boat are not in good shape. Plus we have to build a second cradle for it so we can transport both boats. But we have a plan and we are confident we will have them in the water soon. I may go back in July to sail them and help with the other work, but it is good to have them both in a condition so they can be sailed.