Sunday, November 6, 2011

Well another sailing season is upon us. We flew into Jacksonville on October Oliver picked us up at the airport. We are staying with Ada and Oliver in Jacksonville. Gord and Suzanne, cruiser friends of ours from Ontario are staying at our house for the winter and loving Newfoundland. We decided to give Whisper a face lift this year and paint the outside. WHAT A JOB. We sanded her down, washed her down, and wiped her down with acetone. The next day we painted. This process was repeated two more times. The process has been very challenging and back backing getting lots of exercise and pain from up and down the ladder. We had a system in painting, Marilyn rolled it on about 16 inches wide then I tipped with another roller, very strenuous, but we made a great team and were very successful with encouragement from other people in the boatyard. Some days Marilyn has gone to work with Ada and I go to the boat to work on it. We will do the bottom paint on Monday, move aboard and get her launched on Tuesday November 8th.





This is the meeting area at the boat yard. A lot of time is spent here hammering out which way we want the wind to blow this season to whether or not we want it to blow at all.



Each year there is a major project. This year we decided to paint "WHISPER" You are viewing the finished job. We used Aul grip paint. Around here they say it is top of the line. The process is called "roll and tip". It takes two people, one to roll it on {Marilyn } and another to tip with a brush { Me }. Next week we will give her back her white stripe along with her name and numbers.


One may think it was all smiles and fun but to get from one end to another one has to pay total attention to what one is doing. I can assure you we swallowed many a thought before we were finished.


This is the first of three coats.


After the first coat dried the whole thing has to be re-sanded before another coat.


Look at that beautiful shine which has to be sanded down. Paint one day sand the next. Total time one week to finish the job. The ideal time is when the temp is mid 70's with a little cloud , we were dead on

3 Comments:

Blogger Bill and Patty Dickerson said...

WOW - She is looking beautiful. What are your cruising plans once she is done (that is of course, if you are still physically, able after all of the hard work). It would be great to see y'all again. We just left today from Orange Beach, AL (Gulf Coast) and are working our way down to The Keys for the winter and hopefully the Bahamas for the Spring/Summer. Look forward to hearing from you. Peppermint Patty & Bill from Bimini (M/V "Conched Out Too") I still have my clippers if Vic needs a haircut.

November 7, 2011 at 7:43 PM  
Blogger Jeff/Cindy said...

Ditto to the Dickerson's comment - Whisper is looking great! Hope all goes well with the launch today and that we will see y'all somewhere this season. Fair winds!

November 8, 2011 at 7:09 AM  
Blogger Phil and Lorraine said...

Looks like you are doing a great job and the color of our boats are going to match. We won't be coming cruising this winter - saving for the cruising kitty to try and go again next August. Please post often so we can hear how you're doing.

Lorraine and Phil
S/V Changes

November 13, 2011 at 5:18 PM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home