Hiaqua Gets a Makeover

Randy Miller, Hiaqua 37VT03

rfmillerdesign@gmail.com

Yes, this whole project is starting to wear us down, but after seven weeks inside the paint booth, Hiaqua had a "coming out" celebration yesterday.  The top side of the hull painting is complete, however the bottom is still a little too wet to paint, so it will sit outside for a month to dry out more.  Hopefully that will be enough and we can complete the bottom work.

We bagged the whole boat to keep out the dust and to assist in removing moisture. The bulwarks was also full of moisture.  Heat was piped into the interior along with a dehumidifier running 24/7. As you can see from the attach pic, the bottom was also a big mess.  Layers of buildup hard coat bottom paint and slapped on patches.  The hard coat just flew off with a chisel, thus uncovering hundreds of small and many larger blisters. Surprise!! The yard wanted to plane the entire hull below the waterline and let it sit for, who knows how long (2, 3, 4 or 5 months).  Instead we elected to chip off and sand the entire bottom and re-evaluate the blisters, so the bottom was tented and piped with heat and another dehumidifier was running 24/7.  After a couple of weeks the moisture had gone down dramatically in the bulwarks, as well as the hull above the waterline and below the waterline was going down too. During this period the bulwarks was opened up, dried out and reworked with glass as well as the scuppers and hull prep.  Finally, the topside was painted with Awlgrip and yes, I replaced the sad looking bronze rub rail with stainless.