Painting the bottom of the boat

It as not as easy as I thought at first. First of all, the paint that we
were using was bottom paint, and four times as heavy as normal paint. It
is laden with copper, and therefore quite heavy. The area below
waterline is very big, and all of it needed two coats of paint. The
paint was applied with rollers, and when you had just put more paint on
it, the weight was incredible. Lifting those rollers for hours on end
was no fun, but we finally got it done. The paint had to be applied dry,
so you can only put it on while the boat is hauled out, which is a
nerve-wracking process if you own or live on the boat. The job is done
with a travel-lift, a large piece of equipment that is like a huge,
rectangular frame with one end open. The boat is lifted using a pair of
straps, or slings. This marina uses skeletal cradles along with thick
posts of wood to support the boat while hauled out. The travel-lift held
the boat up in the slings for about an hour so that we could paint the
patches that we couldn't get when sitting on the supports. The whole
thing was very exciting, and Rigel and I had a lot of fun chasing each
other around on bicycles between all of the boats that were there. We
got all the things that needed to be fixed fixed, and we are now almost
ready for sea.

-- By Orion