The old girl as she sat on the water. Yellow and white.
I've added the outriggers and stainless bows and rod holders - nice and strong to hang onto when things are lumpy outside.

Paint - some of it. Mostly Sikkens and International.
Good paints today are extraordinary, the finish "off the gun" is exceptional.

The compressor for the job, (both spraying and air tools) inside a mate's warehouse. I don't think I do this job if I didn't have a big space to do it in (or a spray booth even better...)
Note the outriggers have been sanded ready for priming and painting - they will be colour coded to the hull colour (well...they do it on BW's)

Two full days of preparation preceded this photo - sanding, sanding, sanding and a bit more sanding. Then some masking. Just ready for the first coat of primer (note the dawn colours in the background...nothing like an early start)

A few glass repairs were required - like this one where the hull had stress cracks from a previous owner miscalculating a jetty approach.

The hull masked ready for the first of three sections to be primed and painted. The floor and walls of the warehouse have been thoroughly wet down, to prevent dust blowing up while spraying. And there is quite a lot of lying dust around, the worst of it from the black rubber or forklift tyres

The first primer on the hull - 3 litres of Sikkens Colorbuild - in basic black. Its a dark colour, because the top coat will be dark, and top coat is a lot more expensive. I don't want to have to apply 10 coats of top coat just to cover a light primer.
Actually, I reckon this would be a good finish on a boat. Interesting look, easy maintenance. Flop a coat of satin clear over the whole thing.....

Sanding again - this time wet rubbing the first primer out. This stage lasted a while...there were lots of bumps and cracks which came through the first primer coat. Resulting in rubbing them right out, re-priming, rubbing back to 320g, repriming.....
Final sand with 400g wet and dry

A mate (who really is very good at waving a spray gun around) applies the first top coat - 2 litres of Sikkens Autocryl Plus RM, colour 4541H1 Green. Enough for 3 full coats - the coverage of these 2-pak paints is so good, a little paint goes a long way.

Time for a beer, and a careful walk around to check for any runs. There were only a couple of small ones, which is pretty good considering these are all vertical surfaces, and the high gloss finish.

So, the green is done. Not too sure about the colour now, but lets keep going, see the overall effect...
The next area to concentrate is above the gunwale line. The gunwale rubbers were removed later, then finished in place with white Sikaflex. Above the rubber moulds, the glass was pretty clean - a few stress cracks to gouge out and repair...
Is that green too light???

Topsides only needed fine sanding. Mostly sanded dry, with 220g on a block to keep everything nice and flat. A fine guide coat was sprayed over all the white areas first, so that I could see when the surface was pretty flat.
If I were going to prime, then sand, then paint, I would not have sanded to such a fine grade. However, all surfaces were in good enough condition that I decided to paint wet-on-wet. Prime, then paint straight over the top. Saves a lot of time.

Everything not to be painted white is carefully masked. Very carefully - the last thing I want is white overspray on that beautiful new green hull (is it too light???) The boat is blown off, all dust swept outside, the doors pulled down, and walls and floors wet down with the firehose. A mate is running a tack rag over the surfaces to be painted, to remove any final dust, and static from the surface.
Pallets have been stacked around the hull, so that I can start spraying at one end (back corner), and not have to stop until I get back to the same spot. Therefore no dry edges. Someone follows pulling the airline through the water, and another person is ready with a pre-mixed container of the 2-pak paint mix, continually stirring, and filling the spray-gun pot as I spray. Stopping for a couple of minutes is disaster, so the final spray stage needs to be planned pretty well....

Spraying 1 litre of Sikkens Colorbuild primer in white, followed by 1 litre Sikkens Autocryl Plus RM in Brooklyn White, wet-on-wet. Its not a lot of paint, but it does take a while.

Again the finish off the gun is nice and glossy, though I do confess to getting a few good runs which had to be cut out with 1200 wet and dry once the paint was a week or so old. Just block them out , and polish with a 2-pak polish
The paint is beautiful paint to apply though, with the proper equipment - you can actually watch it "set up", flowing into a high gloss finish about a minute after it is sprayed. The trick, of course, is to just apply sufficient film thickness to give maximum gloss, without getting hangers.

Several days later, I masked out the non-skid areas, and rolled them on. I had bought an additional 500ml of paint in a light grey, and mixed International Deck Non Skid into it, according to the instructions. This has, at time of writing, provided a good hard-wearing non-skid surface. I don't always use a dan bouy on this boat, because it has such a good anchor well. Something I love about the Haines though (especially when retreiving an anchor outside) is the generous walk-around deck, and the non-skid finish has been very good to walk on, showing no signs of wear after 18 months.

Another shot of the non-skid areas.

Not just a warehouse, but a warehouse with an overhead crane! I have done this before, by constructing cradles for the hull. However, this time, having access to the crane, meant working underneath the hull wasn't the nightmare it could have been.

The front lifting sling was fine, because the cabin bulkhead supported the hull.
The rear sling needed a brace though, to prevent it sqeezing the hull and cracking it. There is quite a bit of weight on that cross brace...

The hull had been in the water before. I had since removed the old antifoul and primer. In some areas (particularly the vertical surfaces), there were very fine cracks in the gelcoat, as well as a few old blisters. Each one of these was carefully ground out, then filled with epoxy filler.

The transom was in pretty good nick, as I had previously spent a lot of time on it - drilling, drying, epoxy sealing, and filling some 87 unused holes left as a legacy from previous owners, along with a big patch of wet blisters where there had been an original auxillary outboard bracket.
While I had the crane handy, I did take the oportunity to remove the outboard, remove the old plywood mounting plate, and fit a new one in 10mm nylon. Marine Sikaflex was used to bond and seal this new plate in place.

3 litres of International Interprotect epoxy primer were applied to the transom and underneath, while the motor was off. This is the barrier which will keep the water out....
White was chosen for the antifoul primer, because the antifoul is black, and in subsequent years, when sanding and prepping for the next season's antifoul, I can quickly see if I have rubbed through to the primer.

The epoxy primer was let fully cure, then carefully sanded. I wanted a nice smooth surface, even though there was antifoul going on, this is a planing hull, and I figured the smoother the surface to start, the smoother the finish.

In an old primer gun, the antifoul sprays on pretty well! I used 4 litres this time, thinned 10% for spraying. International Hard Antifouling for Aluminium (no copper, so no electolytic reaction with the outboard, which remains in the water).
Here the boat is back on the trailer, and I'm spraying the transom and the lines where the lifting slings will go.

Back on the crane provides great access for spraying the antifoul underneath.
The antifoul is applied wet-on-wet again, meaning it must be applied before the epoxy primer has fully cured. So it takes a bit of careful planning to get the last primer on and the first antifoul on in the one day.

Another beer or two, while that antifoul hardens for a couple of days.

Finish on the antifoul off the gun. Pretty good - certainly smooth enough not to knock much off the planing speed.

Santa's little helpers, who often keep Dad company on his weekends working on the boat, do the final unveiling.

Computer cut vinyl lettering and pin striping being applied. Not hard to do....just remember the 3 drops of dishwashing detergent in the spray water bottle, and keep it wet!

The boat comes out for the big clean up in the warehouse, then into the water she goes

The old bowsprit was looking pretty sad, and short, so I decided to build a longer one to keep the anchor away from the new paint

Hardwood and aluminium ....

and a couple of layers of glass, which I finished by spraying white gelcoat over. The main thing is to seal the timber from the water....I only used old hardwood for it out of fork pallets, and so it would eventually rot if exposed to salt water

Some more money invested at Whitworths for the new fittings, and the new bowsprit turns the old Haines V19C into a 20-footer!

I don't think a boat is ever finished, but at least she is painted now. Still an old shape, but the hull is sound, and a pretty good ride outside. Also, the cabin in the Haines is pretty roomy for a small boat. Now a new 4-stoke outboard.....wouldn't that be nice one day?

On a jetty in McCarrs Creek, Sydney. The boat lives in Pittwater - if you see me out, please say g'day.

This is the boat 12 months after the spray job (January, 2005). I have just antifouled the hull again, (and adjusted the waterline a tad).
She is ready to go back on the mooring again, for another years floating.