Zen And The Art Of Bottom Painting!!!

SHIP'S LOG:

I nearly had a heart attack today. I pulled into the West Mystic Shipyard , made a left turn to where ABISHAG has been sitting for weeks and she was gone! Talk about panic! Who the hell steals 12 ton boat sitting on the hard? And how would they do it? It seemed like an eternity before my brain kicked into gear and I realized that the boat had simply been moved. In that I am not wintering in Mystic (please God), I was on the hard in a spot where another boat in normally stored. This was fine until that boat came out of the water which it evidently did this morning and so I go moved to a new spot. It was a small first step closer to the water...literally!

Today was the third shot at glassing in the LPG Locker and I didn't waste it. West Marine Epoxy Resin & Hardener. Expensive but boy does it work! The locker has a new layer of glass inside and out encapsulating the Formula 27 Filler. I will check it out tomorrow and quite possibly lay down another layer. In all likelihood it does not need it, it is pretty much bulletproof now, but as Oscar Wilde observed, "Nothing succeeds like excess!"

Touched base with my good friend Skip Beebe and Wednesday we will install the Windvane steering system. When that goes into place, at least the outside of the boat will really look like it is ready for the ocean. I am eager to try it out.

Bottom painting is a real art. True most of it seems to be just slapping on bottom paint but to do it right requires a real ZEN like approach....well at least doing the waterline does. ABISHAG has a red, white & blue waterline of marine enamel and the current bottom paint is a hard type, red in color. Today I had to cut-out, that is with a brush go around all the thru-hulls (don't paint your thru-hulls) and get into all the place you can't reach with a roller, like the area between the edge of the rudder and the deadrise. But the part that needs the real Zen approach is the intersection of the bottom paint and the waterline. And that poses a question, how do you paint a straight line on a curved hull? What makes it a little more challenging is that this is the first boat I can't quite paint standing on the ground.

The first few times I paint bottoms, like everyone else I used masking tape and razor blades to be sure the paint line was perfectly straight. It made the job rather tedious and it never quite turned out perfect. But working for a couple of winters in the Farrar Sail Loft in New London, I learned the art of making a curve with a straight line. All the panels of a sail have straight edges and all of the edges of a sail (luff, leach & foot) are also straight and yet all sails have a curve in them. Bed sheets, towels, curtains are all straight and sails are curved. Once you know the art, it is easy and it transfers, as Kevin and John taught me, to painting the straight line of bottom paint on the curved side of a boat. The best part is that if you do it right, you use only one continuous piece of tape all the way around the boat this makes it a great deal easier, not only in painting, but in taking the tape off the boat. You grab one end and walk around the boat and off it comes. I would explain how it is done but as some Zen master said, nothing can be taught, it can only be learned. The easiest way to understand it is to answer the question, How does one get to Carnegie Hall? And tomorrow that bottom will be fully painted.

MASTER'S PERSONAL LOG:

I can't believe how panicked I was when I didn't see ABISHAG where I was accustomed to seeing her. But it was a good thing that she got moved. I was getting far to comfortable where I was and it was a good reminder that I still have a journey to complete. With the weather getting chilled I have pretty much completed the alternate course south. Even though it would only be a 24 hour dash from Montauk to Cape May, it seems easier in warm weather than in cold. Actually it seems a little scary in the cold as opposed to the warm. Not that I expect any problems for ABISHAG will be as ready as I can make her. Rather it is just that I think ( I don't really know yet) that weather will be less settled. I am not concerned once I get to the Chesapeake, it is the trip from here to Cape May. That is why I want to get the boat in the water as soon as I can, so that I can shake her and me down. I have more confidence in the boat right now than I do in myself, but I also know that I can do this. God is sure making this an interesting learning situation. In any event, even if I have to day sail and motor the whole way, I have no intention of spending the winter here. I really hate the cold.