Klara Wappen!

Wordplay again in the heading, meaning Happy May Day in the second official language, swedish. Today we had no reason to yell "Mayday!", because everything worked like clockwork. We washed, sanded, hoovered, wiped and lacquered the outside of the boat:







While Pertti, our team mechanic, took care of the outdrive, changing oil and lubricating it -- do note the ingenious use of four funnels simultaneously:







We also changed the gasoline filter and engine oil, and installed the batteries. All that is left to do before Summertime hits the water is test run the engine and load the boat with all things necessary.

Anti-foul play

"It will only take 2 hours"...said one happy co-boatowner. In reality it took 5 hours but still quite easy. We applied two 0,75L cans of Blakes Cruising anti-fouling paint (color: True Blue). Remember to shake really thoroughly.



The result speaks for itself again. This is a darker shade of blue than the previous owners International Eco Cruiser.



Also, our friend Pertti agreed to be the engine specialist in our team, and did a thorough checkup with the Volvo Penta B18.



Next week will see us visiting Motonet etc, to stock up on replacement parts and engine oil.

Prime stuff

Today was a good day. In about 3 and a half hours we painted the bottom with Hempel Underwater Primer!



The primer paint will help the actual anti-fouling paint to stick to the previous layers of unknown paint and other substances. The primer paint was quite sticky so we thinned it by adding 10% of "wood turpentine". 2.5 liters of Hempel Underwater Primer was quite enough for the bottom of Summertime, with a few centimeters left over for future use. And the end result speaks for itself:

Yes. You CAN remove paint by vacuuming...

As Teemu mentioned, we "fixed" parts of the bottom by exposing the wood and applying Impreg 1 oil. We also decided to vacuum the whole bottom to get rid of dust and some unknown growth. It turned out that either we have an extremely powerful vacuum cleaner or the paint was just about to fall off since the vacuuming took away nice chunks of paint. Next autumn we'll need to impregnate the whole bottom.

Alkaa jo kyllästyttää..

That's a wordplay in finnish, hinting at the topic of this past weekend: impregnation!

Finally the weather permitted us to operate on her lower half. On Saturday we stripped the anti-fouling paint and other layers of paint/other substances partially, and also sanded the wood (by hand and with the ingenious and affordable Parkside Random Orbital Grinder by LIDL -- 19 euros!). This was hard work, as working under the belly of the boat is anything but ergonomical. To be eco-compliant, we disposed of the old anti-fouling paint in the proper wastebins.



Sunday was easier: just vacuum the bottom, and put on three layers of Hempel Impreg 1. 0,75 liters was _just_ enough.



Coming up: primer and anti-fouling paint job next weekend!