Unfortunately, we had to use up our annual leave before April 6th, so had to take the two previous weeks off, and they turned out to be freezing cold, way too cold for varnishing or painting. Progress has been slow as a result, but we do have some great people helping us now, Adrian White with advice and contacts, Nick Morris fixing the play in the Whitlock steering, Mike Moody on woodwork.
We have an ambitious list of work - a shiny new Maxprop feathering propellor from Darglow to help Marelle stop quicker, and perhaps even reverse a bit better, fixing the play in the Whitlock steering, new twin foil roller furling and Andersen 40 full stainless mast winches, larger Andersen main sheet winches (28s instead of 18s), doing up the coach roof, new instrument panel with speakers included, as well as of course varnishing the topsides and anti fouling the hull. I'd also like to get the coach
The plan is to get all this done by the BCYC classic regatta in July, and then later this year go to Graham Collingwood's shed to get Marelle a new deck, and refit the galley and bow cabin.
Phew!
Marelle's coach roof is looking very bare right now. I am spending my time scraping off very thick paint, and Mike Moody is taking off all the fittings. We are going to fill in the vent by the galley, that Ben added for the trip to Cape Horn, and remove the water heater chimney. We haven't decided yet whether to replace the port light Ben added by the galley or to fill it in - Calibra Marine do some nice shiny port lights, but it is not original and in a way it would be nice to return Marelle to her original trim. Thanks to Susan Pester giving us all Marelle's plans and history, we know that she did have traditional dorade vents and bronze cowls, so we are going to reinstate these, with bronze cowls from Davey & Co and Mike Moody making bespoke teak dorade boxes. Susan also very generously let us have Marelle's dinghy, and my cousin who lives in Cornwall brought it over to Hampshire earlier this year.
We are going to paint the coach roof with Epifanes light cream, which should look fantastic next to all the varnished teak.
We tried to hire some staging over Easter, but were let down, and eventually decided to buy our own. This gave me a great excuse to get an expedition roof rack and ladder for
After a lot of research I decided on laddersandaccess for the staging, and bought 3 x 4.8m x 600mm Lyte aluminium staging and handrails, and 9 trestles. We successfully transported it down to the boatyard today, and Martin got almost a whole side sanded.
The following day, gambling on no rain, we got the first varnish of 2013 applied on the starboard side. Spot the difference!
Unusual weather conditions meant all of the work took a lot longer than we thought. We also added to the work, deciding to get the hatches reconditioned with new acrylic and hinges for the mid hatch, polishing the original forward hatch hinges, and taking all of the fittings off the coachroof for varnishing.
It seemed to take an eternity to scrape all the paint off, and then Mike Moody and Tim spent a few days making sure all the original paint was gone, as it was reacting with
acetone and wouldn't provide a good enough surface for
the new primer and epoxy.
Martin decided to get Mike and Tim to varnish the hatch surrounds and the beading around the edge of the coachroof - this would give a better 'edge' to paint up to.
Mike took advice from Adrian Murrey of Premier Yacht Painting http://www.premieryachtpaintingltd.co.uk/about.html and advised us it was best to use Awlgrip 545 Epoxy primer, then the epoxy to fair the surface, then another coat of primer.
Following that, we used Epifanes Multimarine primer (3 coats), then Epifanes Monourethane in light oyster (3 coats).
Here is the final finish:
We had to use a cover to protect all this painting from the lovely summer weather(!) Various iterations followed, as the gale force winds battered our creations.
Roller furling on - just need the boom now!
The following day, gambling on no rain, we got the first varnish of 2013 applied on the starboard side. Spot the difference!
Update
Unusual weather conditions meant all of the work took a lot longer than we thought. We also added to the work, deciding to get the hatches reconditioned with new acrylic and hinges for the mid hatch, polishing the original forward hatch hinges, and taking all of the fittings off the coachroof for varnishing.
It seemed to take an eternity to scrape all the paint off, and then Mike Moody and Tim spent a few days making sure all the original paint was gone, as it was reacting with
acetone and wouldn't provide a good enough surface for
the new primer and epoxy.
Martin decided to get Mike and Tim to varnish the hatch surrounds and the beading around the edge of the coachroof - this would give a better 'edge' to paint up to.
Mike took advice from Adrian Murrey of Premier Yacht Painting http://www.premieryachtpaintingltd.co.uk/about.html and advised us it was best to use Awlgrip 545 Epoxy primer, then the epoxy to fair the surface, then another coat of primer.
Following that, we used Epifanes Multimarine primer (3 coats), then Epifanes Monourethane in light oyster (3 coats).
Here is the final finish:
We had to use a cover to protect all this painting from the lovely summer weather(!) Various iterations followed, as the gale force winds battered our creations.
Roller furling on - just need the boom now!
