Bettie's Haul Out

We always knew Bettie had a good looking bottom, but we were pleasantly surprised at how nice her hull was even though she hasn't had a fresh coat of bottom paint in at least five years. We are three days into our haul out, and things are looking good.

The keel was rusty but no more than we expected, and there were no blisters. Also, he investigated the crack in the rudder - that crack that everyone always points out to us with these very concerned looks on their faces - and he discovered something kind of cool. The rudder is just covered in fiberglass, and the crack is just in the covering. Underneath, it's solid teak! Craziness.

But mainly what Vlad did was grind rust off the keel. All day long. In 94 degree heat. He looked like a coal miner by 6:00 p.m. on the first day. Thankfully, he has a guy helping him, and Jami has sanded a half of the hull and scored us some bro deals on gel coat and fiberglass resin - things we would have had to hunt for costing us precious time. Here's Vlad looking as dusty as that Mexican street:

I had big dreams when it came to our haul out, that Vlad and I would undertake this massive project together and complain about how hot it was and how much painting sucked but in the end we would have completed this major and essential piece of boat maintenance. There's something satisfying in that, a sense of accomplishment in the face of heat stroke. Instead, I am on baby duty, and while that is also an essential task I kind of feel like I'm missing out, which just goes to show you can complain even while sitting in air conditioning.

On the bright side, though, we discovered that Jari loves on the orbital sander. I guess he inherited the power tools gene.

 

 

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