Finishing up haul-out & painter recommendation

 
On Monday the painter applied the first coat of black Micron 77 anti-foul paint.  After it dried he then moved up to the book stripe.  He brought out a couple of pages of color swatches to match the existing paint.  These color pages are neat.  We have not seen these before.  Each page had various shades of orange -- from yellowish to brownish.  Each color was about 2 1/2" square and had a hole punched out in the center.  Simply hold the page up against the existing paint on the boat and move it around until you get a perfect match through one of those holes.  Really a very efficient way of color matching paints.  Wonder why Sherwin Williams hasn't thought of this?

The original boot stripe was orange.  I do not like orange.  But to change colors meant we should remove the current orange paint.  If we applied a different color over the orange then the first time some yahoo bumps into our boat and scratches the new paint, then the old orange would show up like a glaring light.  Removing the old paint seemed like a waste of time and money; so, being the cheap people that we are, Bill and I decided to go ahead and paint the boot stripe in the same ugly orange color.  The painter did a marvelous job.  Two coats of white primer and then 2 coats of bright dark orange.  Several strangers stopped by in the boat yard and commented on how good the boot stripe looked when the painter was finished.





Now the painter was ready to have the supports moved.  They do not use normal jack stands here; they use small tree trunks to brace up boats in the yard.  The yard does not allow the boat owner or the contractor to move these supports.  Only the yard employees are allowed to do this job.  So, off to the marina office I went.  The girl told me the cost would be 10 Euro per pole!!!!!  That equaled 130 Euro to just re-adjust the jack stands (logs) ---- something that is a normal part of doing business and costs nothing in every other boat yard we have ever used.  I balked at paying this absurd price, and the girl immediately dropped the price down to 70 Euro.  That is still a ridiculous price, but what could we do?  The poles had to be moved.  Cha-ching yet again for this boat yard.  She radioed for the worker to come move the support poles.  We were ready for this to be done right then.

The yard workers must have been busy, because it took almost 3 hours for someone to show up for this little job.  Normally this yard is very efficient.  Ask for something and pay the fee and it is delivered immediately.  The yard worker did not arrive at BeBe to move the support poles until well after 6 p.m. and by then it was time for the painter to quit for the day.  But early the next morning he arrived and began scraping down to the gel coat in the 13 spots where the support poles had been originally located.  Scraped; sanded; applied the gray barrier coat; went to lunch; applied the green barrier coat; took a short break while it dried; then applied 3 coats of Micron 77 to those 13 small spots.

When he left on Tuesday afternoon, the painter told us he would be finished late the following day.  We couldn't see how he could finish cleaning, waxing and polishing the topsides in one day, but he was confident that he would be finished late Wednesday afternoon. If we had not added a few more jobs, he would have finished that quickly.

His partner worked with him on Wednesday.  They quickly polished the topsides.  Then Bill insisted they also apply Rejex over the wax.  Rejex is made by the same company that makes Corrosion X.  We love both these products and cannot recommend each more highly.  Rejex greatly reduces the black soot marks down the port side of our boat from the engine exhaust.  The black soot just does not stick like it used to.  With Rejex, what little bit of soot does stick will wash right off with plain water.  Doesn't mess up the wax at all.  Applying the Rejex is the first extra job we asked the painter to do.

The previous day Bill had removed the rear flexible bumper that is attached to the very tip of our stern.  It badly needed repair of a few cracks and repainting.  He repaired the few cracks in the rubbery thing and let the repair material cure thoroughly.  The second extra job we asked the painter to do was find flexible paint and repaint this bumper for us.

The third extra job we asked the painter to do was repair several gel coat cracks on the stern.  We had a few tiny chips in the gel coat on the stern that a repairman had really messed up in Malaysia.  These were tiny, tiny chips and the idiot filled them with dark gray gel coat rather than white.  In the process of doing so, he also had greatly enlarged the affected areas.  So, instead of having several very tiny chips in white gel coat that really did not show up; we now had several much larger dark gray patches.  Looked like hell and Bill chased the Malaysian guy off our boat as soon as we saw the mess he was making.  The only time we have ever refused to pay a contractor.  We were furious.  Anyone ought to know better than to use dark dray on white!  So we wanted to take this opportunity to have these spots properly repaired.  The painter here in Turkey did a very good job of repairing the mess made by the Malaysian idiot.

BTW, we also had him paint the prop with black Trilux 33.  Like most boaters, we have tried various things to reduce marine growth on the propeller.  And nothing seems to work well; at least, not for long.  The best product we have found so far was Prop Speed.  It worked beautifully and allowed no growth whatsoever for exactly 1 year.  Then it was as if the product simply evaporated underwater.  It was 2 years between haul-outs, so during that second year we constantly fought off marine growth.   We could not find Prop Speed here in Marmaris, so were searching for another product to try.  This is the first time we have tried Trilux 33.  Fingers crossed that it works.

Had we not added these extra jobs, the painter would have been finished with our haul-out on Wednesday afternoon -- in only 8 working days!  And he did a fantastic job!  Even with the 3 extra jobs, he was finished Thursday afternoon around 3 p.m.  But it was too late to get scheduled for splashing that afternoon.  I visited the marina office and we were added to the list of boats to be put back into the water on Friday.

When the travel lift arrived at our boat Friday morning, we called the painter and he returned to BeBe.  As they removed the support poles, he sanded each spot and then applied 3 coats of Micron 77.  After the boat was lifted in the slings, he painted the bottom of the keel.  I am not 100% certain, but I believe that he managed to get 3 coats of Micron 77 on the entire bottom.  In the past using Micron 66 applied by roller in much warmer weather, a 20 liter pail of paint would cover 2 full coats with 3 coats along the water line and bow area.  But I am pretty sure that this time the entire bottom got 3 coats of the new Micron 77 from the same size pail.


BeBe was lifted by the 70-ton travel lift.  As she was being brought to the pool slip to be splash, the 330-ton lift happened to be near the pool slip.  Our little 16-meter (53-ft) boat on the 70-ton lift was dwarfed by the 330-ton behemoth.

We are now docked in slip J-33 at Yacht Marine.  We had paid for the boat yard through 1 June.  This marina allows boats to stay in slips for any time that has been paid for the yard -- and vice versa.   We sent a bilge pump to Izmir to have a new gear box manufactured.  It is supposed to be returned to Marmaris late next week.  So we are sitting in this marina waiting for the return of that pump.  Then we will start making our way toward Athens to meet our son and grandson on 15 June.  We still need to re-install our wind instrument that Bill removed before BeBe was loaded for transport through the Red Sea.  And we need to put the genoa back on the forestay.  I have been sick for a few days with a bronchial problem (maybe caused by fiberglass dust and toxic paint dust in the boatyard?), and don't feel up to doing anything right now.  Glad we have a week or more to just sit and do nothing.



 This final photo is a reminder to me to explain a local custom.  As surely everyone knows, tea is a big deal in Turkey.  Every shop you enter wants to serve you a glass of tea.  This is a small glass of hot sweet tea.  No shop makes their own tea; they all call a local tea shop and within a few minutes a man arrives bearing a tray with however many teas the merchant has ordered for a particular group of customers.  This is a strong cultural tradition.  One should always drink the tea.  To decline is to be ungracious to the host or merchant.  But we have never seen a merchant or shop owner actually pay for this delivered tea.  We just sort of assumed that each shop keeps a running tab with the local tea shop. 

Tea tokens

But over the centuries the local people have devised a far better system.  If the tea shop runs a tab for a merchant, the merchant can always dispute and argue that he did not receive all the deliveries.  If each merchant had to pay for each delivery, then the deliveryman could pocket some of the cash.  They have devised a system of prepaid tokens.  These look like tiddly-winks and are kept in a small bowl at each shop.  When a delivery of tea is received, the merchant gives the deliveryman the correct number of chips for the number of teas delivered.  When a merchant runs out of chips, he visits the tea shop and buys more.  No chance of theft by anyone and no disputes about what was received and what was paid for.  Great subsystem of currency.

The painter for our job was Sadettin CETIN (pronounced similar to the famous Saladin, last name with the squiggly beneath the C so it is pronounced Chetin).  Sadettin's cell phone number is +90-536-987-8111.  We recommend him highly.

FWIW, I totaled all receipts and converted to US dollars based upon the exchange rates we received at the various ATM withdrawals for this haul-out.  We try to always pay cash rather than credit cards in order to avoid the high foreign transaction fees and bad exchange rates charged by the credit card companies.  Our ATM withdrawal exchange rates are always in line with the daily XE online rates.  This haul-out cost more than any to date.  Total: $7,507.54
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