The Fairing ~ Yep, She's A Beauty!

After Gina came to visit the first time, she promised that when she returned that she would take over the entire Fairing project.

After we sandblasted 2 years ago, the boat was covered in what is called pitting. Pitting is a small area (think a large scale orange peel) that remains after the pocket of rust is removed from the steel. Ours was not a structural issue, only aesthetic, and we knew that we would not have time to get it done before launch. It was a huge job, a lot of work and very time consuming.

Above, we get our first instruction from our good friend Hugo, who is the best in the area for this type of work.

OOPS! Missed a spot!! Hugo critiques the spot that we started the day before we got his help :-)

The first step in the whole process was the need for the entire boat to be sanded, and all the pitted areas had to be hand wire brushed very thoroughly. This was to ensure that the epoxy mixture could adhere to the amerlock already on the hull. Gina and Shep enjoyed their time on the scaffolding together!! This picture also shows how badly the pitting was.

Hugo puts on his first batch of putty - 2 part West System Epoxy, Cabosil (powdered glass),and Microballoons (miniscule glass spheres). Each batch was only about 3/4 of a cup, because if you mixed more, then it would cure and harden before you could get it applied. Essentially, the whole boat got 1 coat pulled on, 1 more coat over about 60% of the hull, and a third coat on about 25%.

In between each coat of epoxy mixture, it had to be sanded down totally smooth. Unfortunately sanding hardened epoxy mixed with lots of glass, is very tiring!!

Gina and I both had less endurance than the guys when it came to the sanding. Raoul and Shep, preparing for the next layer of epoxy.

Hugo's friend Aldolfo was a godsend for our project. He is a expert epoxy puller and not only taught Gina a lot about his methods, but helped us tremendously! Thanks, you are welcome on our boat anytime!!

Gotta push on!! Here we have Gina, Adolfo, Hugo and Dennis, burning the midnight oil. Notice the discoloration of the hull.... The yellowish areas are where there was a significant amount of pitting and became discolored as the epoxy cured. I became the expert mixer during this project. I estimate that we hand mixed up about 200 batches when all was said and done.

Here she is the starboard side spot painted with Amerlock over all the freshly sanded areas. There was about 5 coats of Amerlock on the hull when we started. Although, when some areas of epoxy were sanded, we hit bare metal. Those spots had to have u prime painted on, and 2 additional coats of Amerlock.

Same story, Port side.

NO MORE PITS!!! This is after the boat got one entire coat of Amerlock (after the patchwork), and the first coat of Almond colored Rustoleum topcoat was almost finished.

Gina, we owe it all to you, she is a beauty because of all your dedication, hard work, and love.

Thanks for everything!