Winter 2023 (part 3) Polishing and painting

The first weekend that Linde is on shore, I am going to do some "small" chores on Sunday.
At the bottom of the boat is an old 40-meter anchor chain. This lies there for nothing and needs to be taken out of the boat. When Linde is on shore, this is easier than lifting such a chain from the boat onto a jetty. Unfortunately I was on my own and had to first lift the chain 3 meters up (from the bilge to the deck) and then slowly from the deck to the ground.
I had also forgotten to remove an antenna along with the SSB radio. So this also remains to be done, as well as clearing the bilge(area in the boat between the wooden floor you walk on and the hull of the boat). Here we found all kinds of material from the previous owner of which we have no idea whether it is still usable. We decide that we will keep it in the storage room so we can always retrieve something. If after 3 years we still haven't used items, I think we'll dispose of it then.
Besides these chores, I think it would be a good idea to see if our high pressure sprayer can get the deck cleaned up a bit. We saw the light surface slowly turning gray last year, and by now the damp winter has also left a fair amount of green deposits on the deck. When I do a quick test with the sprayer, it turns out to work great. After an hour of water spraying, the top of the boat looks fresh again. The cleaning of the top will come when she is back in the water, but in due course this filth does not have to slide down over the beautifully clean hull. A wonderful feeling. Visibly a step forward!

Polishing and buffing

Before I start the big jobs on Monday, February 20, I am going to George Kniest in Muiderzand on Saturday, February 18. Here they have organized a demonstration day together with Riwax. Riwax is a supplier of polishes. On this cold windy day I learned what steps I need to take to give Linde a little shine again.
The first step is to wash well. With Boat Cleaner from Riwax, you remove all contaminants and any old polish from the boat. Then you can use a sander with a very fine grain (2000 or 3000) and water to sand away light damage. I decided not to do this on Linde. There are some scratches, but I don't find them disturbing given the condition of the hull.

Then comes the first polishing action. Here you cannot do without a good polisher. With a coat disk and coarse polish (RS02) from Riwax you polish the surface. Then clean again with Boat Cleaner. If the boat still looks reasonable, you can also use RS04 instead of RS02. RS04 is slightly less strong polish. After this treatment, polishing holograms may appear on darker boats (the movement of the polisher). After RS02(or RS04), RS06 should always be applied to dark boats. This is in fact polishing again but with a very fine polishing compound. Again, the polisher should be used for this and a clean coat wheel.

And then you can already enjoy a shiny hull. After this treatment with RS06, the boat must be cleaned again with Boat Cleaner after which a hard polish can be applied. This RS10 is applied by hand or with an eccentric sander with a soft disc. After applying this polish, it must be polished out. This can again be done with the polisher, but with a foam disc to again avoid holograms.
As you read, I learned an enormous amount from Riwax at George Kniest and I recommend everyone who has no experience with boat polishing to follow such a demo somewhere. Absolutely fantastic.

In good spirits, I started Monday, Feb. 20, with the steps described above.
Before I could begin polishing, there were quite a few gelcoat repairs done that were far from a neat finish. This makes perfect sense considering that this was probably done on a wavy anchorage somewhere in the Caribbean Sea. I decide to sand these spots and give them the right color. Then the Riwax step-by-step plan can be performed.
What was tricky for me is that I was alone and the boat is much too high to polish from the ground. At the marina, fortunately, I have access to a 2-meter-long rolling scaffold, so I can do a 2-meter length each time, then get off the scaffold, move, get on the scaffold and polish again. Now it seems fairly easy to get to work with a polisher, only this polisher is over 12 kg. In the beginning it is doable, but at the end of the day that machine is very heavy to operate at shoulder height.
After a few days of plodding, it's finally here, a shiny beautiful hull. I didn't expect that the hull could get so shiny again. Maybe we don't have to paint the hull within 2 years after all :)

Underwater ship

And then it's time to tackle the underwater hull. There is nothing to do but spend hours with a special scraper scratching the old layers off the ship. Unfortunately, this is overhead, so you get and lame arms and lots of paint residue in your face. I regret not having a good mask. Eventually the scratching does turn out to give quick results without affecting the gelcoat. After a good inspection to make sure all loose parts are scraped off, it's time for the sander. Fortunately, I have a good workplace vacuum cleaner so I am not covered in sanding dust. First with a coarse grit(40) and then towards 120. And then I can conclude that I have completed the hard work of scratching and sanding. A nice white plaque under the boat shows the work I have done.

And then the week's vacation is over. From now on it will be weekends when I can do something. I must say that I was very lucky with the weather during this week of work. It was cold, but almost no rain.
The weekend after the vacation I will go back and it will be time to put primer on the bare spots under the boat. It needs 2 coats on and is planning between rain showers.
I have reasonable luck each time. Every time I put the primer on it is still dry for over an hour, then it starts raining. At least the primer is reasonably dry by then so there is no problem.

A week later Carla joins me and together we apply 1 coat of antifouling. In itself that goes pretty well, but again, working above your strength is a tedious job. And to be honest, I was disappointed with the size of the keel. But anyway, in the end we are very satisfied. If we are lucky we can apply the second layer on Sunday.
Sunday, March 12, I look at the weather forecast and it looks like we have no rain from 1 p.m. on. We get to Lemmer at noon, clean up first while it is still slowly raining. At 1 pm we decide to have a cup of coffee at the Beachclub in Lemmer to wait for a dry afternoon. Quite a nice restaurant to have a party and to sit on the terrace for once. Here you have a nice view over the Ijsselmeer. Anyway, at 2 pm it was still not dry and the predictions and clouds gave no indication that it would be dry soon. I suggested at least reassembling the propeller. I had taken that one home and sanded it down so it was nice and smooth again. I assume these are in the bag that are on the boat. Turns out I didn't take the blades out of my car yesterday, in other words, they are still at home. Then we return home unclaimed.

After we have put everything away we drive home in 1 hour and 15 minutes. I turn into the driveway and ...realize that my wallet and house/work keys are still on the boat. $%#&^%$%&^ is the only thing I manage to get out. There is nothing left for me but to drive to Lemmer yet again. Before I go again, I grab the propeller from my own car and take it back to Lemmer. So in the end we have been busy with nothing from 11 o'clock in the morning until 5 o'clock in the afternoon ... we did make some miles this weekend :(

A week later, I go to Lemmer again on Friday afternoon. I manage to put another layer of antifouling on the underside by myself. I also managed to reassemble the propeller as well as the new aluminum anodes.
The job on the shore is done!

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Winter 2023 (part 2) On the shore

31 March 2023

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