Last Sea Trial

Phil was able to get the bottom completely painted over the last few weeks, through a painful series of blocking, lifting, sanding and painting the boat while it was still on the trailer...primarily the issues were where the bunks are located. But it is done.


This past weekend, we reinstalled the seats, hatches, bilge pumps, new prime balls, gunnel covers, and some additional hardware...then we went back to the lake and ran the boat pretty hard for an hour and a half...it was the best of the trials, no issues, and no leaks (around the scuppers)...all said it was a great trip.

I also started prepping the cuddy for some work...I would have preferred that Formula NOT have glued carpet into the interior of the boat back in '72...that was not fun to sand off, but it got done and has been primed. Hopefully, will be able to get back and have that done soon...next step will be to get the windshield going. But she will probably get salty before she gets glasses.

Bottom Paint

Sandblasted, wiped, taped, primed and painted. The picture was taken with my phone...we are in the process of re-installing everything and still have to put another coat of BP on it and get it jacked off the bunks and painted underneath.

Rub Rail, Cables, and Floor-take two

The wife and new addition split for Spartanburg this weekend and allowed some substantial time to be spent on the project. Friday night was spent taping off and cutting out the patterns that we wanted on the recently addressed floor. Since the last update, Phil spent alot of time, sandblasting the original Durabak off, epoxy painting the floor, priming it, and then applying generous coats of top coat paint (3 total). We have concluded that we caused the durabak to fail b/c we did not spend enough time in the prep work...so this time sand, vac, tac cloth, acetone wipe, solvent cleaner wipe and then apply the paint - each time...it appears to have resulted in better adhesion. After the sanding, we applied the new Durabak on Saturday morning.

While that was setting up, we installed the rub rail...per the install instructions, it was pretty easy to do but there are alot of screws in the install.

After the rub rail was finished, I sported the tyvex suit, respirator and goggles and started sandblasting the bottom in preparation for the bottom paint - mostly to get the barnacles and old paint off. Phil got back to putting the engines back in order and came up with a method to get the hose covers inside the engine covers...looks better than before and should give us a nice seal: