Friday 25 Oct, HHN day 14: First day of antifouling. Quite a workout!
Early start as we have a big day ahead of us, paint the antifouling. It’s the fourth time we paint Cloudy Bay’s bottom, but it is the first time Glen does it entirely himself (he kept his word following last painting experience in Antigua yard … “I do it myself from now on”)
The preparations alone took him 4h30’. First the hull needed washing after the light sanding a few days ago, mostly a good scrub along the waterline to make sure all the grease is off and the rest to rid up of sanding dust. A mini-workout before even starting to paint! Then masking off the waterline (which needs to be perfect) was the second work-out, especially under the stern where the curve is too tight for wide tape. By the time it was all ready for painting, Glen was ready for a tea break 🙂
Once his sugar and energy levels were back up, it’s on with the first coating of antifoul paint, International Micron Extra. So nice to see the hull gleam all one colour again. Always feels a shame to put it in the water! It all started positive and promising, but tiring soon after that. Five hours later the first coat is finally completed. After a short debate Glen decides to go ahead with the second coat but only manages to do one side of the hull as by 6 pm it got too dark for him to see where he was painting.
So he calls it a day, completely pooped and with lots of blue marks on his face and eyeglasses. It almost looks like he is better painted than Cloudy! Armed with some of my cosmetics we head straight for the showers to clean him up. The face was easy to save, but another pair of readers are a write-off! At least half of them, he can still see through the lens of the bad eye.
Back onboard, we manage to sit for a meal at long last – 7.30pm by now. And I have a feeling the next few days lunches will be on the same trend.
On the inside jobs, he installs the new drain system for the galley sink. Previously, the 2 sink bowls drained into no less than 3 pipes through the hull (due to the 3 Isotherm keel coolers). Now we have filled 2 of the thru-hulls and only have one pipe to drain through, hence a new set of under sink fittings required. Much neater than before but still a wiggle to get fitted neatly.
Today’s conclusion: next time we get hired help for the antifoul painting! There’s a lot of hull down there to paint! Round-2 tomorrow.
