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Painting Stem to Stern

Once upon a time, Zeus had a really bad headache. Zeus didnt make the connection, but his headache started about 9 months after hed had his way with a dangerously clever goddess named Metis... and swallowed her.

Health insurance being hard to come by, even for the Lord of the Universe, Zeus turned to the wily Prometheus for medical advice. (This was before Zeus had enough of Prometheuss practical jokes and chained him to a rock.)

"Oh, wily Prometheus," Zeus moaned in agony. "Tell me whats wrong with my old head."

Not one to waste time theorizing, Prometheus whacked Zeuss head with the sharp end of an axe, and thus was Athena born, springing from Zeuss forehead with a shout.


This summer, Ive also been giving painful birth to an idea, buy whenever I started groaning about my poor over-worked brain, I remembered Zeus. At least it wasnt that bad!

As I think Ive mentioned before, Ive been working on my first iPhone app. Working 10 hours a day, 6 days a week... (No, Im not exaggerating, Helena.) Slaving away, in fact... with nary an hour for sailing or boat building.

But Im finally done! Sent it off to the elves at Apple for what they ominously call a Review, and now Im twiddling my thumbs, waiting to see if they sink it with a list of required revisions, or let it sail through, as it deserves.

A perfect time, in other words, to catch up on my blog.

Not that Ive been completely idle in the boat department. The Blue Moon absolutely needed a stem to stern paint job, which I was determined to finish before the snow flew, no matter what.

The last time the Blue Moon had seen a paint brush was back in Steinhatchee, FL, where Bob (previous owner) and Helena and I had given her a pretty good scraping and painting. But a lot of sun has beaten on  her poor decks since then, and cracks had begun to appear.

I had used Interlux Brightside on the BMs topsides and deck -- a mistake I now think. Brightside is a great paint, but I now think its better suited to stable fiberglass hulls. Its a bit too shiny and brittle for the Blue Moons 3/4" plywood deck. I thought a more traditional oil-based paint would stay a bit more flexible, and thus crack less, so I decided to try the very traditional Kirby marine paint.

Id already used Kirby paint on my spars, this spring, and discovered that it took forever to dry in cold, damp weather. So I picked a hot, dry weather window in the middle of summer to paint the deck.

But first I had to scrape and sand, of course. Did I mention I picked a hot, dry week? Luckily, the Ketewomoke Yacht Club has a beer machine with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of ice-cold dollar beers. Something that the snooty yacht club down the harbor doesnt have (ha, ha!)

Of course, once you start picking at little cracks, you somehow always end up with big cracks... And yet another row back to the club for more beer...

side decks painted

Why do I never have a good picture, when I need it?

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