it's official.. sanding bottom paint sucks

[Art Haberland]

Flirt has 5 layers of bottom paint. The original light blue put on her 51 years ago at the factory.. followed by a layer of bright Red, then a layer of dark blue, then some dark red, and finally a layer of Blake Ablative.

It has taken me all day to get a quarter of her 23 feet done.

Granted, I am fighting the Trailer, the angle of her bottom, and my own messed up shoulder.. but this is still taking forever.



I am not even going to get into the fact that I found more damage to her keel.. I am going to have to raise her off of the trailer some to repair it.

[Charlie P. (NY)]

The pleasure is all yours.

We just sold our Pearson 31-2 (Micron CSC) and picked up a little Mud Hen 17 open trailerable boat with canvas cuddy/bimini.

It has bottom paint, or at least paint on the bottom, but it hasn't been touched up since 1986 or so.

[lustyslogger]

The pleasure is all yours.

We just sold our Pearson 31-2 (Micron CSC) and picked up a little Mud Hen 17 open trailerable boat with canvas cuddy/bimini.

It has bottom paint, or at least paint on the bottom, but it hasn't been touched up since 1986 or so.

Ah the joys of trailer sailers!!

[Art Haberland]

well.. at least one side of Flirt is now sanded free of paint







I also discovered why my boot line and bottom paint were so high above the waterline at the stern..

On a boat like Flirt with her long and shapely overhangs, the bootline has to grow thicker at the ends least it look pencil thin at the stern, fat in the middle, and thin again at the bow. I do not know about other sprites, but mine has two scribe lines. One is her actual waterline and the other is for the boot. At the stern the boot line rises up as the hull flattens out.. well, some previous owner painted in a two inch boot from bow to stern and then raised the bottom paint up to meet it

[Charlie P. (NY)]

Looking good.

I stripped a boat years ago and then found, happily, that the factory or a prior owner had lightly dimpled the waterline every three feet or so with the tip of a drill-bit and I could mask it and restripe the boot.

Good thing as I was well into it before I considered how I might recapture that line.

[S.O.Salt]

Spot the sanding dog eager to get to work.jpg

.Yea! it sure sucks. But perhaps you can make a version you can train , like my dog "Spot". She could take away some of the drudgery.

Attached are images of her working for me

She gets under the boat willingly. I just stand outside and direct her movements. The sander is mounted in the head, business side up. The on switch energized and away she goes. Of course I still have to hit spots she misses. later versions have a wider stance and plywood or something smooth to ease her "leg" work. The boat will have to be up and off the trailer.

S.O.S

[Charlie P. (NY)]

Brilliant!

[Art Haberland]

Absolutely brilliant!

I am thankfully almost done though.. only 6 more feet and that is the easy parts (the stern and rearmost parts of the keel)

[Charlie P. (NY)]

And you thought they used to careen the big wooden ships just to get to the bottom? Heck no. The crew waited for the captain to go below and then rammed the beach to grind off as much as they could so they didn't have to scrape it off by hand.

[Art Haberland]

well.. Flirt's bottom is clean.. now I can do some repairs. Found a few soft spots in the gelcoat that led to air bubbles where the 'glass was not properly laid down. Funny thing is, they are all on the Starboard side. The port side is solid