Budge is approaching the fairing of the hull with the eye of the auto body painter. He knows that it will never be perfect so he has to settle on the fact that it’s a home built boat, not a Ferrari. He has to reach the point where it’s OK by his standards. Welcome to the wonderful wonky world of Wharram catamarans! We worked on the hull (STILL!) We sanded a bunch!
Ben worked on preparing the rudders.
He had to put a final coat of e-pox-e on the uppers. These damn rudders were the first project he started when he got here. They are perfect! That's because we built and rebuilt them three times (like Groundhog Day)!!!!!! Cursing is an art form with builders of boats.
We sanded the hulls!
Ben painted on a coat of primer on the rudder tops.
Then filled in the imperfections with red spot putty. The red oval shapes are primer separations. The thin lines are brush strokes. The big red splotches are sanding imperfections. There are epoxy islands........aw hell you get the picture. May the farce be with us.
I could say redundantly that we sanded the hulls, which we did, but your eyes would only glaze over and you'd fall off your chair in a stupor and hit your head on the floor, necessitating a trip to the emergency room, so I won't. Ben waved his magic wand and pressure sprayed the hull to get the crud off. Best $3.00 garage sale money ever spent!
Then he coated the lashing strakes with epoxy. These are the strakes that lash the beams...........awwwwww'................. you'll get it later on, if you can remember. We had to sand them, of course (WAKE UP!).
Then we started taping the hull. Then the hull temperature was over 100° (too hot to paint) and we decided to do it the next day, which was Saturday, I think, the days mush together like the chronosynclastic infundibulum.
We taped. The Brown Recluse came out to help!
And taped.........
And taped.
And taped until it was time to paint..............
Then we started spraying...... until a problem arose: pinholes in the surface (monsters from the Id!). The paint was having problems, so we started rolling.
White is a lovely boat color........and unique! We stuck a brush in the Brown Recluse's hand and had her paint the chines while I painted the gunwales and lashing strakes. And, as typical of teenagers unaccustomed to real work, she abandoned the job, the task unfinished, thus dumping the load onto someone else (me). I hate working with teenagers. They're only useful when they get out of the way. Way too much grumbling and sighing.
We cracked on. We rolled the second, topcoat on and took a break while it dried. It looked good. In the morning we will spray on one final coat. Here is a series of pictures to show the progress.
C'mon, you didn't think I'd paint the boat white, did you???
The color?? Move over, Matt Damon, it's Martian!!!!!
Budge then decided that we could again spray on the third coat as a more even surface emerged (release the Kraken!).
So when the big lime green catamaran pulls up along side of you in the marina, it's the Martian Dog! Ah-oooooooo!
The bottleneck passed, we move on to progress. A prize to all those who got the obscure sci-fi references: a weeks vacation in Texas learning boat building! Move over, Tom Sawyer.
The Music♪: Ray Charles " It's not Easy Being Green"
It ain't easy!
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