Painting the hull- One

We had the boat hauled out and paid for a month of yard time to make sure and not push ourselves into cutting any corners.  We had an ambitious list of goals from painting to thru-hull repairs and if we got lucky, stainless rub-rail repairs.  We could not have been more pleased with Vito and his crew at the Shalimar Yacht Basin.  They gave us all the help with space and they did a great job repairing our poor blistered bottom and applying the new coats of anti-fouling bottom paint.  We also installed David's dream folding prop. A major upgrade for Blue Moon and worth every hour of labor to pay for it.  As always, each step in the prep work was slow, tedious and hard work.  We did pretty good for 2 old folks!

Lots of filling and fairing was needed.

Lots of blisters everywhere.

Blisters are nasty and sadly expensive  to repair.  They are not uncommon in "Classic Plastic" boats that had their fiberglass hulls layed up before the techniques were perfected.

Being an older boat, she had her share of cracks and crazing from age.  We had painted the hull but still had a lot of repairs to make in the accent stripe area.

Cracks had to be ground out to their full extent, filled and sanded smoth.

Lots of patient work required to make her as pretty as we could get her.