Finally started

On our eighth day in the boatyard the painter finally started working on BeBe.  As mentioned in a previous post, all anti-foul paint must be scraped off, then sanded and new barrier coats applied before the new coats of Micron 77 can be rolled on.  

The last time all paint was removed to the barrier coat was in May 2006.  This should not be required again after only 5 years (and 3 bottom jobs), but the paint that was applied in New Zealand is flaking off horribly.  So all the paint must be removed so we can start fresh with new barrier coat.  Sorry to bore our non-sailing friends with all this boat maintenance stuff.


The painter arrived with his partner around 10:00 and they both worked their butts off all day long.  Scraping the hull is a tough job and requires lots of muscle.  The guy on the right is the company owner; the partner is on the left.  The owner is in far better physical condition than his partner.  The partner needed rest breaks during the day and his arm muscles were giving out by 16:00.  But the owner was still going full-force the entire day.


But maybe he overdid it a bit, because the owner did not show up today until 14:00.  The partner was here when we arrived this morning.  He worked slowly, but steadily, all day.  It rained this afternoon and that delayed work for a couple of hours, but they are making good progress.

Scraping down to barrier coat

One bright point -- while scraping down to the barrier coat the painter discovered one tiny blister in the gel coat.  It is about the size of a dime.  This blister would not have been discovered if we had simply applied more anti-foul paint during this haul-out.  So being forced to scrape down to the barrier coat was a good thing in the long run.  Much, much better to repair one tiny blister now than to unknowingly ignore it for anther 2 years while it gets larger and larger.  Repairing this blister will not delay the job completion and we will be glad it is properly repaired.

Bill cleaned the line cutter today with acid and reassembled it.  So it is now ready to be reinstalled when the prop is returned from having the bearings replaced.  He manages to find one small project each day to occupy his time.  My project was another day at the laundry washing the winch covers and bath floor rugs.  It surprised us that the boat arrived off the transport ship completely clean inside.  We had expected the boat to be dusty and sandy after the ride up the Red Sea, but the interior was clean and even the outside wasn't sandy.  But after being in this boatyard for 8 days, everything inside and outside of this boat is dirty.  It always amazes me how dirty boats get sitting in boatyards.  Cleaning now would be a waste of time; that will have to wait until we are back in the water.


Tomorrow morning we will stop by the Customs office and submit our paint receipts.  Sailors headed to Turkey need to be aware of this procedure.  Customs will come out to the boatyard to verify that the paint we purchased is at our boat.  When the job is complete, then Customs will again return to our boat and verify that the paint has been applied and that we soon will be leaving Turkey.  Seems like a lot of trouble but that will provide us with a tax savings refund of 340 lira.  Any individual boat purchases over 118 lira can be handled this way.  Just be sure you get a "tax invoice" when you make the original purchase.