BOTTOM COMPLETE!

The bottom is complete! The last three coats of barrier coat were applied about 1-week ago. Last Friday and Saturday, the barrier coat was sanded out as it had a bit of an orange peel texture. Since the orange peel was somewhat pronounced, we used an 80 grit on random orbit sanders to knock the orange peel down then finished off with more fine sand paper, eventually finishing off with a 220 grit.

The two photos below are after sanding the barrier coat and the final product.



The final finish is VC17. I had contemplated other bottom paints but settled in on VC17 due to my familiarity with the product and the ease of application. The VC was rolled on in two coats over the course of a couple of hours.

The final finish is relatively good. There are a few areas to address that didn't sand out as nicely as I had hoped they would, but I am happy with the final product. We'll leave the fine tuning for next winter.

Hullabaloo is scheduled to launch May 22nd. Over the course of the next week, we will hopefully be buffing and waxing the hull, installing the windows, and (more important than the other items) installing the prop shaft.

A new prop shaft is being cut as the old one had been somewhat worn where the shaft passed through the stuffing box and cutlass bearing on the strut. The new shaft should be here tomorrow.