Completing The Refit, the Continuing Saga
Readying for the Awlgrip
October 28th: Calypso is in Milford Boat Works paint shed being readied for painting the Awlgrip on the topsides. Work is continuing on repairing the vertical cracks in the gelcoat of the hull. The work is shown in the following two videos.
The Starboard Side
The Port Side
As you can see the final coat of a surfacing compound has been applied in preparation for the primer.
Calypso is not going to be primed for several weeks because the transom still needs a significant amount of work. The reason is that the spider cracks on the transom are caused by the sun's heat over time working on the flag blue color of the Awlgrip. You can see these in the following photo.
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| The Spider Cracks in the Transom |
Larry, and many other authorities tell me that the only color for a hull in the tropics is white. I guess I'm still enough of a romantic to appreciate Flag Blue, so Calypso will be Flag Blue.
Normally, these cracks would be repaired by routing out the cracks, adding an epoxy-based filler, sanding smooth and repainting.
However, according to Larry, the yard manager, the best way to repair, as opposed to fix, this problem is to sand off the paint, gelcoat, and undercoating. This gets down to the glass/epoxy hull. Then apply a coat of epoxy to smooth out and paint. This eliminates the gelcoat and under layer that both dry and crack in the sun.
The Transom
As you can see from the video above, the boat has been wrapped up from deck level as part of the preparation for painting.
More when it happens.
More when it happens.
