Painting of Deck

2 Feb 2019

Bruce worked hard to prepare the deck for painting and by late Thursday the deck surface had been prepared, masked off, and rolled with a coat of Norglass "No Rust" primer that acts as a barrier between what little remained of the original enamel paint and the planned 2-part epoxy paint.

Deck masked off and painted with primer

Bruce and Mike (who had painted Pachuca's mast) laid the first topcoat on Friday morning before the blazing summer sun made the work unbearable.  Bruce rolled the paint onto the deck while Mike followed with a sifter to shake the Inernational "Intergrip" anti skid material onto the wet paint then rub it in gently with his hand.

After the paint was laid we had a discussion about the color and I agreed with Mike and Bruce's advice that the color was too dark for summer conditions resulting in extra heat inside of the cabin.  We consulted the paint chart and I agreed that the same color but two shades lighter would be more appropriate.  Fortunately (and very wisely) the second can of paint had not been tinted and by the end of the day the paint had been tinted and ready for the second coat on Saturday morning, which Bruce would lay down on his own.

I noted on Saturday morning from my home in Darlington that that painting conditions were almost ideal with some cloud overhead, a moderate southerly wind, and a much cooler day.

While the deck was being painted I worked below setting up the route for installing the hoses from the electric and manual bilge pumps in the cabin to the drains in the lazarette.  Unfortunately liberties had been taken with no consultation in the routing the Morse cable to the transmission, one fuel line, and one heavy battery cable and it took me about 2 hours of slow and timid work (First, do no harm) to reroute these lines and free up the two large holes through the bilge bulkhead  for the pump hoses.  After investing in some trial and error it became clear that feeding the hoses from the cabin into the lazarette was not feasible because it was impossible to get past the muffler to get a good two-handed grip on the hoses to pass them up into the lazarette. Feeding the hoses from the lazarette down into the steerage compartment is definitely the way to go.