75 Days of Sanding

 It's not easy.  None of it.  But the hardest part is sanding.

Starting near the end of May, I sanded the entire bottom with 30" 3M sanding boards.  Low spots became obvious quickly, and I alternated between 80 grit, and rounds of Awlfair late into the evenings.  With effort, I hand sanded all the ablative bottom paint away, and burned through most of the old red top coat.  The first thing that jumped out was a pretty big low that followed the waterline around.  My best guess is that it was created by lazy sanding of old barrier coat layers from some days long gone.

Eventually, I got to a point where I thought the bottom seemed fair, at least with the 30" boards.  By that time, I had a hired helper, and together we decided it was time for a couple coats of high build.  We found a few interesting things, like this rectangular repair on the starboard side, but it seemed in good order.

The bliss of a single-color boat wore off quickly.  Running my hand around on the hull and working around with battens and fairing tools, I quickly became sure that the bottom just wasn't good enough.  I made the tough call to start anew with a brand new wave of fairing and sanding.  This time, I came back from Home Depot with some CVG and built out a couple 8' longboards of varying flex.  The work was incredibly brutal, working the boards on the bias with two guys.  It's the only way.

In the end, it's just about will power.  I would literally ask myself almost nightly, "how bad do I want it?"

July 1st arrived, and this face says it all.  It was finally time to go for it again with primer.  After several more coats of high build, I got a thin layer of 545 on there, and sanded her all the way down to 320.  Ouch.  If I ever sell this boat, and you are the next owner, know that I killed myself getting her as straight as possible.