Almost finished with the maintenance

I (Dale) had to make an emergency trip back to Minnesota for a week.  When I got back it was time to bring Hi Flite to the boatyard.  We had an appointment to be hauled out earlier but the storm caused us to postpone that.  Once i got back we brought her to the boatyard and she was hauled out.  We had just had the bottom cleaned while we were in Annapolis and the diver told us that the paint was no longer working.  Once out the crew gave her a good scraping and power wash.  The paint looks good but the antifouling is no longer working allowing slime and barnacles to grow.  We also have a problem in that the bootstripe is in the water.  The bootstripe is the white painted surface just above the waterline.  When we got fully loaded for our trip south the bootstripe was partially underwater.  We had talked about how to raise the waterline but it is a little complicated when you are dealing with curved surfaces.  Once she was out of the water I came up with what I thought was the correct solution.  I marked along the stripe every foot and made a measurement of the width at these marks.  I then divided the measurement in half.  After two and a half days of sanding off most of the old stripe we remarked both sides measuring down from the top of the stripe with the new widths. After taping we applied four coats of barrier coating to keep the water out of the fiberglass and then primed and painted the new line.  Since the white that was on there was so hard to keep clean we decided to change the color to match the gold stripe just below the toerail.  After two coats of primer and two coats of Awlgrip epoxy paint the new line is finished.  Next was painting the bottom.  We applied two coats of VERY expensive bottom paint.  The final step is for Cori to buff the hull to remove waterspots and oxidation making the blue really stand out.

We have completed a few other projects while we are on the hard but these are the big ones.  We should be back in the water tomorrow and tied up to our old slip at Matthews Point Marina.  The next step is to shop ofr provisions and then we are off south again.