Reminded of Our Mantra, Again!

The mantra I’m referring to is, of course, “anything you put on a boat you’ll have to take off again.” This applies to things like tabbing for bulkheads, any liner of the hull, holding tanks, electrical wires . . . yeah, and paint.

We’ve been planning to paint the bulwarks and the hull for a while. While a lot of sailboats maintain their original gelcoat for decades, this has not been the case with Calypso; we first painted the hull in Trinidad in 1995 and she’s gotten a couple of touch up coats since. It’s time to do it again.

I mentioned all the endless prep in an earlier post, though that was mostly about varnish. Spoiler alert: you can’t get away from sanding! The last time we painted, Jeremy did a fabulous job sanding down the primer. Maybe too good a job, as it turns out. We’ve had some issues with the paint delaminating off of the hull and cabinsides. The paint is hard as nails, but if you tape it to mask an adjacent surface, you might take the paint with you when you take the tape off.

After some discussion, we decided to aggressively go after the paint, taking it mostly down to primer (and maybe even beyond.) A round of 60 grit followed by a round of 120 grit seems to be doing the trick nicely. Initially we were worried that the 60 would be too aggressive and eat through the paint too fast. Unfortunately, 80 grit didn’t do much more than scratch the surface. So 60 grit it was. The 120 did a great job of smoothing it out and yet will provide just the right amount of tooth for the primer to stick; when it comes time to sand the primer, 120 will be our choice so the paint sticks to the primer.

It’s important to follow the directions of whatever paint system you choose. And yes, we are fans of using one company’s entire line of products. This doesn’t mean we only use Interlux everywhere; it means that we use the same primer, thinner, and paint. So down below, where we used Rustoleum? We did Rustoleum primer and then Rustoleum paint on top.

The temperatures that cooperated last week to allow us to apply epoxy (4 coats in total!) are misbehaving this week. Highs in the 40s and lows in the 20s are NOT conducive to painting! No matter. This decision to do yet more prep means we need more time to sand before we can wield paint rollers anyway.

You might notice that the portlights are all out. The glass has delaminated, making it milky especially around the edges. We’ve gotten a couple of quotes for new glass and are fairly certain we’re going with acrylic replacements. I’ll keep you posted.