Bristol-Blue Lake Michigan Sailing Adventures

  As the sanding wraps up I start to look for a time to paint. It is Spring here in Michigan and it has started to rain. We have had three days of on and off sprinkles. While I know I could go down and sand and fill a few more spots here and there between the raindrops at some point, you have to stop and draw the line. I could go and go to perfection on this 45-year-old boat but why. We intend on sailing it and it will undoubtedly get a nick here, a scratch there, and a little line chafe there. Now we wait for the right weather, not too hot, not too wet, not too cold at night. These outside projects take patients. There are other projects to work on while we wait. Who knows with the prep done or nearly done maybe the boat will be launched before the deck is even finished. 

Video 1:  VC 17 paint mix:   Stir It Up, Baby.   Save those carry-out dinner cartons they are the best paint roller trays.  You can close them so your paint does not evaporate.  Video 2: Legends After trimming in the waterline and keel. It is time to cover some square footage with the roller. Video 3: Time Warp Some different views from around the boat.  Video 4: Moonlighting Finishing up the last section with the roller. Video 5: Almost Time for a Drink One more trim coat around the waterline and she is done. I always do a final trim coat around the waterline with some of the thicker paint from the bottom of a quart.

Over the past few years, I've started to gather quite a collection of cleaning supplies, polishing compounds, and waxes. Having a yellow boat has accelerated this collection. This being the third year with Woodstock I've had the opportunity to try three different polishing compounds head to head.  The first two years I used 3M Heavy oxidation remover followed up with their Finesse Polish. The first year I went over this with the 3M paste wax and the second I used Turtle Wax. I personally feel the Turtle Wax held up better and gave a nicer shine.  This spring I decided to give something else a try and ordered some Total Boat after watching Andy at Boatworks . If you have not seen his youtube channel you should check it out.  This is a two-part product as well Total Buff and Total Shine.  My father also came by this year and he has been using the Mcguires Products on his boats and camper. So we gave them a head-to-head comparison on the yellow hull. While the Mcguires was good it

This year Tower Marine has me in yard storage and I'm less than 100 feet from the power! I decided I to have to take this opportunity to go to work on the deck with the power sanders and get some prep done.  Things always look worse before they get better right. I started by grinding on the hatch with my dremel tool. It had a lot of gel coat cracks and I found the dremel to be the perfect tool to open up the gel coat, so I could fill them with West System 410 fairing compound. After the first round I sanded and laid down a layer of high build laquer primer. Then I sanded and filled again. Then another layer of laquer primer. It is not perfect but it will be much better than what I started with.  The cockpit area remains one of the trickest to work in.  All the corners and working around the drains has taken some time. I removed all the hatches and sanded in all the little crevise that allow water to drain from the seating. It took quite a while to get all the traveler position numb