Topside painting

Yesterday and today, I focused of painting the boat's topsides. Preparation is everything in painting so I spent a lot of time preparing the boat and you can see here some of the 3 rolls of masking tape I used.

Then I went around the edges with a brush.

I had planned to roll and tip, that is, roll the paint on and go over it with a dry brush, but with just the roller I was getting very good results.

Now I did find that the sponge rollers were giving me bubbles on the surface, but I switched to a very fluffy roller and the bubbles went away.

Also I found that having the right amount of paint on the roller was very important.

Now admittedly, it doesn't look as good as a spray job, but it's good enough for my eye.

This morning, after a close inspection I decided to do another coat.

It was miserable, working outside in the heat.

I had a welcome interlude of delivered packages, the first being my new bobstay. That's the wire going from the waterline at the bow to the front of the bowsprit.

Next were 4 fenders. Notice that you can't just buy the fenders otherwise they get all grotty. No, you have to buy sweaters to go on them to protect them...........BOAT (bring on another thousand)

OK where were we?....Oh yes, topside painting, except we are done with that and now we need to do the boot stripe. Where is that masking tape?

And here is that fluffy roller that did such a good job.

I must say that she is starting to look quite sharp.

Tonight I went ahead and ordered a gallon of blue micron 66 for her bottom, and after I put that on then I can splash her. Also I tried starting the engine and she fired after about a second and ran well. That's after sitting for a couple of months so I am pretty confident about the condition of the Yanmar. Trouble is when I went to start her after shutting her down, she wouldn't turn over, so I suspect I will have to buy a new starting battery. At least my new 150 amp blue seas fuse didn't blow. Finally I decided to fire up my new VHF even though I don't have all the paperwork for her yet.

She acquired her GPS coordinates, even though it is sitting down below in the navigation station and she pulled in the AIS targets and in fact the hardest part of the installation was trying to work out how the off/on switch worked. Reception is very clear and the whole experience for this baby has been brilliant.
Finally my ice box smelled, so I needed to do a clean out.

Turned out to be some old rice.