Status report: On the hard, in the heat

My friend Major and I hauled Ms. Bettencourt on her trailer early Tuesday. She is now tucked under the shed at the Augusta Ports Authority. Surface preparation and paintwork have begun. It is slow going because of the climate. Temps were in the 90s before noon yesterday, and nearing 100 by mid-afternoon. Humidity makes it much worse. Augusta is the only place I know where you can boil and bake at the same time.

I work in short bursts, mostly governed by the position of the sun. The boat and trailer are parked on a north-south axis. I did surface prep and masking on the east (port) side of the boat very early this morning, then moved to the shady (starboard) side for another hour with the scraper and tape. By noon it was too hot to work.

I will be back on the east side with primer, shortly after sunrise tomorrow, then to the other side, and so on. I expect this solar pirouette will persist through two coats of primer with sandings in between, then two topcoats of epoxy enamel, also sanded between coats. Painting has to take place very early mornings when the surfaces to be painted have cooled enough overnight to be within temperature specs for the paint.

Most fortunately, I am not coating the whole vessel. I want to get the underside of the hardtop and the hardtop’s new fir supporting structure primed and painted, and a couple of coats of BilgeKote on the inside of the pilot house. This should be doable, even at my weather constrained rate, in a week or so.

By the way, hauling the boat was not without a little drama. Major, who was at the ramp with the truck and trailer as I motored the Albin upriver, called me on the VHF to report a man in trouble near the Augusta Rowing Club. I found a young man clinging to an overturned one-person rowing shell about 50 yards from the ramp. He seemed happy to see me and said he appreciated the ride to the club dock.

Still on the drama theme, this photo shows what I found after I parked the rig and did a walk around inspection.

That's a big oops! I guess I got in too big of a hurry to get everything back together the last time I had the prop off  for minor repairs.

Re-tightening will be done strictly to Michigan Wheel specs before Ms. Bettencourt goes back in the water.

Finally, I have talked with a canvas guy in Charleston and it is still my plan to trailer Ms. Bettencourt over there the week of August 6. If I get a design and a price quote I like for a canvas enclosure, I'll just leave her in Charleston to get the work done.

Crazed but still functional ...

... Is there a remedy?

I have been an Albin-25 aficinado since 2003 when my neighbor gave me the wreck of a boat which has become the present day Ms. Bettencourt. Over this time I have inspected perhaps more than two dozen other Albins searching for ideas I might want to incorporate in my vessel.

One unusual feature that I noticed in all these boats, including my own, was a badly cracked and crazed finish on the dashboards. I also saw some strange (to me) remediation techniques employed by owners. I saw a couple of instances where people had applied sticky-backed vinyl wallpaper over the dash and around the helms. In another case, an owner had glued stained and varnished plywood panels over flat spots in the dash and painted around them. Yet another person had deployed a kind of table cloth, weighted down across the top under the windshield, to conceal his flawed finish.

In Ms. Bettencourt's case, I had pretty much a blank slate to work with when I got around to tackling this problem in 2005. The dash was a disaster.

This is where the dashboard project started. Please recall that the boat had been abandoned on the water for 12 years before it came to me.

So I just tore everything out and started over. I believe if you click on the picture and look closely you will see vestigial mud dauber nests in the glove box and on the tangle of wire hanging out from under the dashboard.

I sanded the dash and surrounding area thoroughly and filled a lot of dings and holes. Next came two coats of Pettit Easypoxy undercoater, which seemed to fill the network of cracks all over the dash surface. After sanding yet again, I followed this up with two coats of Pettit Easypoxy topcoat.

At the time, I though the result looked pretty good.

Unfortunately, the beauty was transitory. Here's what it looks like today. Again, if you look closely, you should be able see the underlying crazing and cracking across the entire surface. Obviously, the so-called "high build primer" topped with one-part epoxy paint did not hold up.





It is beginning to look like my Winter 2012-2013 Albin project will be re-doing the dashboard (again). Given my good experience with Interlux two-part epoxy undercoat and their Perfection topcoat, I am beginning to think that these will be my products for this job. I will be calling Interlux Tech Support sometime soon to get their ideas, which I am sure will start with "...remove all of the current one-part epoxy paint job." Maybe they will have another magic product that will peel the stuff off easily. More likely, the answer will be elbow grease and a lot of sandpaper.

Any better ideas?

I would be very grateful for any advice on this dashboard project. Has anyone used a product they can recommend? Is there a better way to do the job? Please respond using the comment box below.

Back at the jobsite...

I have been burning through masking tape, preparing the interior of the pilot house for paint. And, we are still on schedule to haul the boat and finish painting the hardtop surround and underside next week. As soon as that work is finished, the plan is to haul the boat directly to a canvas shop in Charleston to have the hardtop enclosure designed and fabricated. More about that later.

Back to work!

My friend Major and I will be hauling Ms. Bettencourt on her trailer July 23 or 24 for a 10 day stay under the shed at the Augusta Ports Authority warehouse. Here's the work I plan to finish during that period:

• Inside pilot house

            Mask around windshield, side windows, dashboard

            Clean surfaces
            Fill and fair holes left from old canvas fasteners

            Remove, refinish teak grab rails

            Repaint with white Interlux Bilgekote

            Reinstall teak grab rails

• Interior underside of hardtop

            1 coat of Interlux Epoxy PrimeKote primer

            1 coat Interlux PreKote primer on rafters and stringers

             Sand and wipe down with solvent

            2 coats Interlux Brightside including rafters and stringers

• Exterior underside of hardtop

            Mask around windshield and side windows

Touch up hardtop perimeter with Interlux Epoxy PrimeKote

Surface prep, exterior rafters and stringers

1 coat Interlux PreKote primer on rafters and stringers

Sand and wipe down with solvent

2 coats Interlux Brightside including rafters and stringers

• Reinstall windshield wiper motor

•  Install VHF antenna
• Check zincs and cutless bearing
• Repair dings and scratches on the hull

I am working to identify a canvas designer/installer now and it is my hope that when the above list is finished, we will trailer the boat directly to the canvas shop.

After that...


          ...Cruise time!