CODBLOG23: The Paintjob
We had many discussions, mostly around the bar, about the final colour of the hull. Dark colours are not so good with sunlight (if we ever get any) and we wanted to be different from the many white-hulled COD’s. Reds and blues are also well represented so we opted for Cream from the International range.
We had put grey Primocon on the surfaces that would be underwater and Yacht Primer, also grey on the topsides. The break-line between these two, in theory, was the waterline.
Establishing the waterline is a tricky business. Perhaps some sort of laser marker might work if you could make sure it was level AND that the boat was level. Surprisingly, the answer turned out to be on the other boat we had in the tent, ie Kandahar. This has the waterline scored into the hull planks, presumably when it was being built. How this was done originally is still a mystery that we might solve one day! Anyway, we took measurements down the hull at regular intervals from the gunwhale to the waterline and transposed them onto Gwalch. Then it was “Join-the-dots” time using a long piece of flexible plastic as a rule. This turned out to be a 3-man job with two holding the rule and the third marking the hull with a pencil. This performance was repeated several times as we had opted for a white “Boot-topping”, a stripe of white Antifouling between the cream topsides and the black antifouling below.
Our paint specialist, Gig Jackson, had set out to achieve a “piano-top” finish to the hull. Unfortunately, we knew that this would be spoilt when the hull took on water after being dry for so long. The planks would then squeeze out the sealer from in-between and create a “railway track” effect. What we didn’t realise was that this effect would start even with the paint going on. As the Yacht Primer, the Undercoat and then the Topcoats were applied, the dry timbers sucked in the paint and the sealer squeezed out at the joints. Perhaps next year for the “piano-top finish”!
All the woodwork has been treated with Danish Oil and it really looks good. The Marine-ply deck, having been primed with Primacon was finished with a couple of coats of Interdeck anti-slip deck paint. Gig Jackson and Peter White have put a lot of time in on the painting and the boat is really looking good.
