Copper bottomed

C day arrived and thanks to Owen, Dean and Aga the hull of Seascape was coated multiple times with Coppercoat resulting in a shiny, smooth bottom that truly looks the part and demonstrated a great stride forwards

A lotta Coppa

 

2 coats in

3 coats in

And finally after 5 coats a lovely job 

From astern

 

Keel    

Check the colour

In the meantime it is time to start planning for replacing the hull striping and the coving line. We determined that the current colour of the blue line is RAL 5011 which is Steel Blue So quotations are requested for the wrap to be done in vinyl. Tick, tick, tick......

Now just to spend a few days curing as the water based epoxy needs to harden before the hull is "shuffled" that is moved on the cradle so that the supportive patches can be painted to complete the job. In the meantime a bit of top sides cutting back will commence and next week the mast is going back on   hooray!

The build

Building the boat when she was commissioned as Ocean Flame III

Built at Trident Marine located at Wicor near Porchester, Hampshire in 1996

Ocean Flame III was sail number 109

 

Filmed by Alan Philpott and presented to the committee of the Association as an update, the boat can be seen alongside another of her class slightly more complete. 

 

When we later see the drying process it becomes easier to understand how the large structures supporting the engine and the bulkhead are immense enough to take a while to dry out.

 

It is also interesting to see the moulding for the deck lying alongside ready to be craned on top of the hull.

Thanks to the Go Sailing Association for putting it on 

Youtube

 

Spring?

Spring is sprung, the weather has hit high teens with sunshine and increasingly the itch to get on the water is becoming irresistible. Having monitored hull moisture for the last three weeks we have decided that dry's'abone ain't going to happen any time soon but most of the hull is now dry enough to coat with Coppercoat so Monday is C Day! It is still the engine bearers and large frames that are not giving up their water although this is unsurprising as they are foam filled with non closed cell foam, a feature of the time when she was built. The hull itself is in fine condition and so we hope that the moisture evaporates into the internal space rather than pushing out into the epoxy paint.

tminus the weekend

The Coppercoat painting will take a team a day and curing will then take a week or so before the "Shuffle" when the boat is moved again to paint the diddly bits where the cradle is supporting the hull. Then it's outside to cut and polish the topsides and put the mast back onboard so we can measure up for canvas work which was postponed since February In the meantime the final plumbing of the watermaker and the waiting to get the saildrive back keeps us busy, notwithstanding that there is a whole other project on the house going on separately 

Almost there

  Hey ho