Blue colour antifoul or antifoul blues?

Sunday 31 Oct, re-launch 2021, HHN day 32: All day messing with varying antifoul paint colours…

For once we set a later alarm and we are glad of a nice long night’s sleep. Outside, it’s bright and cool. Autumn is now here to stay it seems.

First thing is a look outside at the antifoul paint that Nacho applied yesterday, to decide if we splash (launch) with just this one coat or we try to apply another in places where it looks thin. It really does look awful, not just because of the uneven painting, but the colours. We can clearly see where Nacho had used the Micron-Extra paint by its usual deep blue colour. But the Micron-CSC, while its colour is not bad, it is clearly different to the Micron-Extra, more of a grey blue. Now, once underwater who cares about the colour. But we do at least want the water line to be the same colour.

Long story short: I end up painting the rest of the opened CSC tin trying to even up the covering but fall short of getting the area around the water line to one colour. So, I submit to opening one of the 2 new tins of CSC. As I stir it, I’m thinking “this is grey, not blue”. And I continue to stir …and stir … and stir, hoping a blue pigment will kick-in at some point. But it doesn’t, it stays a grey version of the previous CSC colour.

First action is to take it back to Deale hardware store to ask for my money back. But on a Sunday there is no manager there and the staff won’t take back such a high priced item – particularly given it is a pot of paint that has clearly been opened. They do try to help. They assume I haven’t stirred it correctly. And they take a sample then dry it with a heat gun and declare “see – that’s dark blue”. But to my eyes it’s grey.
I would put the whole job on hold for 2 days, till the manager is back, but I really want to complete the waterline so I can pull off the masking tape. If it’s left on more than a day, especially with these damp nights, it will become a nightmare to remove. So I decide to bite-the-bullet and soldier on – at least to get the water line one colour – even if it is grey!

When I’ve finished, we stand back and look. OMG the hull looks like a patchwork quilt! 3 different colours now: Blue Extra, greeny-blue CSC, and now grey CSC! Well, at least the waterline is one colour. Below the water line only the fish will be giggling.
But we will need to launch as quick as possible into the brown Chesapeake water, before any human pointing and laughing starts in the yard!

This messing around with the paint and colours ended up taking the whole day. I had hoped to get the PropSpeed applied to the Gori and shaft today and be done with hull painting. But that task is now deferred till tomorrow.

Just as the light is fading, I rig up high trestles for me to start polishing the top sides this week. Then it should be time to launch! In the evening, after blog writing and dinner, it’s one last coat of varnish to the new mirror trim, then it’s off to bed.