Thursday - February 12th update

Thursday I purchased my paint for the boat – I went with the AUTO AIR COLORS (autoaircolors.com). This is the brand that Hew and some of the others used to paint their boats.

I sanded the epoxy that oozed out of the hull deck joint last night and put a coat of primer on the hull and the rudder. I then put some more filler in some of the chips and while sanding the hull deck joint on the port bow section I noted a good size hollow that needed to be filled. I mixed up some Bondo and smeared it on this area after sanding the primer off and exposing the fiberglass. Unfortunately when I mixed the Bondo I did not add enough hardener and the end result after about an hour was still unset. I scraped this Bondo off and cleaned up the hull with some acetone to remove the remaining film of unset Bondo. I added some more hardener to the Bondo and re-smeared in on the hull. This time the Bondo set too soon and I did not get a good finish. Looks like more sanding for me and probably some more filling to fix this botch. Needless to say I am not too happy with my boat building skills the past week. Hopefully things will turn around and I can get the hull smooth and ready for final paint before I head out of town again.

After I get her painted I will drill the holes for my sheets rudder tube and keel bolt. I will also install the fairleads on deck for the jib sheets, another turning block on deck.

I also will be making sails; I have watched Al make quite a few sails the past few years, both Victoria sails and IOM sails. I am sure it is not an easy thing to do, but watching Al, he makes it looks pretty simple.