First Day of Work

We slept in until about 7:50 this morning, and all woke refreshed after our first night aboard. We arrived and chatted with Mike until about 11:30, but Kurt stayed up even later to check out all the stuff in the drawers and lockers. Sleeping was great except for the boat leans to port and the bow is up high. I just slept upside down in the V-Berth and Kurt slept on the port settee. Mads actually put herself to bed in one of the pilot berths...seems comfortable aboard already!
The big day began with a lot of sanding. We wanted to put an epoxy barrier coat on the bottom while it was mostly free of bottom paint...so it was time to get the last bits off from under the boot stripe. While beginning this project, Mike had noticed an area in front of the keel that was an old repair where someone had found a ledge at speed. The repair looked and sounded a bit hollow, so we decided to investigate. Here we go already, saying “while we’re here we ought to...”. So Kurt started to pry off the old fiberglass patch (which was quite a job; starting with a screwdriver, then a sawz-all, then a grinder...) and what remained was a 12x5” hole. There were bits of balsa and resin that fell out during this very messy and dusty process. It was amazing to see how thick the hull is...they sure don’t make them like they used to! After this project was finished, we continued sanding until all the bottom paint was gone. My arms were ready to fall off by this time. I knew there was a great deal more to do the next day, and was hoping to be able to lift my arms. Cathy