Battleship Grey

Given that it was the only day I had in the whole Easter holidays on which I could do anything with the boat, I was not excited by the forecast.

As you can see from the pics, its best to ignore the forecast and carry on as planned.

With the tide too low to get onto the drying pad (a non-starter in any case as the two boats on it remained on it despite having booked it for Kamala) I had to come up with another plan. Thanks to a tip off from Martin (Vitesse) I knew I had a chance of getting onto the tiny concrete pad next to the blocks on the North Arm.

I was doing this at about 6am with a borrowed 2.5hp and no rudder. (The rudder was at home for a re-profile and re-varnish and my Honda 5hp has died. That's another story for another day.)

The boat slowly dropped with the tide and I stood on the blocks to ease into the right place as it hit the bottom. While the tide continued to fall I began painting the topsides. You can see the grey line round the top.

I returned later on to commence the annual anti-foul job and found the sand bank being removed at harbour entrance. Bottom painting wasn't as foul a job as expected due to the hard work put in last year to remove all the old bottom paint.

Then to add the final touch - a coat of Crown grey undercoat, leftover from a job at home. Why?
a) because it was cheap and all I had
b) because the old paint work was in a such a poor state that even grey undercoat is an improvement
c) because in September I will get a free lift out to the boat park and have her blasted back to gel coat to do the job properly.

So there she is in a her new colours. Everyone seemed to know 'the little red boat opposite the Tenby' but now she's less distinctive. Until September.

PS I did go for a sneaky sail as I put her back on the mooring, just don't tell the wife.