This week (Last week of November 2017) results in some significant progress on the boat. After the priming we done last week, it allowed any fairing of the hull or imperfections to show up much better than they did when the boat was a very dull and worn out green.The ship got a couple of coats of the top layer white paint on the hull. We are using DuPont marine paint and it looks fantastic. It is not done, just wait until we unveil the new color scheme. We have some
With the primer on, the fairing compound was added to any small nicks and sanded smooth.
The boatyard has an interesting way to keep any overspray from hitting other boats. While they do have a large building they could put a boat into, it would require pulling both masts, putting the boat on a rail cradle and pulling into the building. When they paint outside, they have an set of tarps that they string up between the front fence and the back end of the boat. They have 2 lines that hold the tarp up above deck level and then two more lines that run from that top line perpendicular to a fence on the other side of the yard. This line is what keeps the tarp away from the hull giving room for the scaffolding to all be enclosed inside the tarps. The video below shows this a little better than the photos may.
When you see the tarp from the water-side lets you see how they have it extending away from the boat by using those perpendicular lines. The second photo shows this a little bit better.
It has been intersting to watch the work being done on the boat. Painting and fairing work is beyond my experience for sure, so everything I see the team do is intriguing to me. I am suprised at what a great finish and shine they can get on the boat while sitting on the hard outside. I must have had the mental picture if a paint booth like I have seen on some of these television shows where they refinish hot rod cars or something and just assumed it to be so much more precise. As I shared with the yard, I want the boat to look good from 10 feet away. That is not to say I want a haphazard paint job, but I am not entering this in a show competition where people are going to be walking along the side and rubbing their fingers down her to see if there are imperfections. Frankly, I will be rubbing along fenders, and I hope not to do it, but it is a real possibility that I bump a dock or two as well.
In addition to the paint and exterior work being done, the team has been busy cleaning and painting the bilge as well. While the color is darker than I think I had in my mind, it still looks great to see a uniform, clean and shiny bilge. The work is continuing in this area and is done section by section. It is not a simple job because from each access hole the yard workers are having to paint up to the bottom of the sole so quite a bit of work going into this section, but the results are looking great so far.
We are also getting a new mizzen mast. Dreamchasers mizzen was still wooden. The main had been replaced with aluminum at some point in the past, but the mizzen was not. It was always solid, but we felt it would be a good upgrade to have it checked out and replaced if the deal was right. In our case, the yard had a used aluminum spar and can modify it to work for our boat. In the photo to the left, you can see our mast on the right and the aluminum one on the left. It was painted black and looked pretty rough, but they have cleaned it up great. We met with the yard owner to discuss some 
options before they moved the hardware from our old mast to the new one. Things such as winch height were something we considered as well. Since we were making these changes to the mast, we had a chance to modify things now. They will be making aluminum plates and welding them to the spar to mount the winches.
The mast will be painted to match the main mast and what I like about this one is that the lines will run inside of it unlike the wooden one where they can’t. I will take advantage of the mast being down to add some things to the mizzen such as an anchor light (as a spare to the one on the main) and also a secondary VHF antenna.
We also decided to have the yard sand the nameplate on the back of the boat and sand the rub rails. Since the scaffolding was set up and I didn’t want to chance sanding into the new paint, I let them go ahead and do this. I will do the toe rails. Even in these photos where the paint is not complete (we are adding black to the color scheme as well) we can see how beautiful it looks against the new paint.
All in all the work is progressing very well, and it is scary and exciting every time I go over to the yard to see the progress of our home on the water.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S44R2PmHij8[/embedyt]