finishing touches

The initial plan was to remove the old antifouling and immediately replace it with the new one. Coppercoat.

But "and immediately" became "find osmosis, grind it out, dry it, sand off a few sqare meters of gelcoat, fair the ground out holes, laminate a layer of glass over the most impacted part of the hull, put seven coats of Gelshield on and" - and that's the last six weeks in a nutshell.

Last week then was a lot more relaxed, becase all in all, there was only one thing to do: cure. That was something the boat could do very well on it's own. So for the first time in weeks, I had a few quiet evenings and I also could do a few other things. For example, I have replaced the old Carpet in the saloon with soft teak lookalike.

The true work for which Antres spent the last two weeks on land came Saturday: six kilos of pure copper were waiting to be spread out over the hull. Paul joined me again to help, because to mix up the two component epoxy and keep the copper in suspension in it added to the challenge that we had a maximum of 45 minutes of useful time tow work would have been a bit much for one person. But together, we had laid on five layers of Coppercoat beween noon and 7pm and it was really satisfying to work with the material. The photos will not do it justice, but there is a deep metallic shine by the copper particals embedded in the resin. It was truely fun. And because the next coat had to be applied when the last was still a bit sticky, the work went really quick. We started on the port bow and by the time we had finished on the starboard side, we only had to wait about half an hour before mixing up the next batch. In addition, one liter of resin and hardener plus one kilo of copper was just enough for one coat, so the material was perfectly packged for this boat.

The result was deeply satisfying. A number of weeks of very annoying work are coming to a close. All that is remaining now is small stuff. Yesterday I painted the parts of the hull that were covered by the supports, on Thursday, I will sand the coppercoat to activate it, then the boat is ready to go back into the water.

And that's exactly the plan for Friday: I have an appointment to splash at 8:30 am. From there, I'll immediately move the boat to the mast crane to put the mast on. The sails are here at home already and are waiting to be put on. I have to remember to replaces the VHF antenna cable (for the AIS transponder) and after that, all should be good for a new season.