In which Tiger turns white!

Sanded and ready for primer. Just to the left of the bow you can see
 the top edge of a rudder, and part of the ramp. Those pieces are
complete and just waiting to have a boat to attach to.

No, she won't be white ultimately. But how exciting to see the covering-up of the micro-balloon colour... and with that, the end of the "hmm... interesting colour... is that the wood? ... what colour do you call that?..." questions!

Prior to painting, Trevor removed the catwalk and cradles. The hull is balanced with 2x4 bracing to the edges of the shop. This gives great access for this step of the project. Once exterior painting is done, the cradles will go back for interior painting.

The green tape line is 2" above the actual waterline. We're testing Aquaply M, an environmentally-friendly bottom paint, for use on the underwater components. It's an epoxy coating. Since you can put polyurethane over epoxy, but not the other way around, we plan to bring the bottom paint up a bit higher than is technically necessary. That way if we decide to change bottom paints at some time in the future, we'll be able to do so without stripping the surface. (There's lots of information about this paint on the Sound Specialty Coatings Corporation website.)

We're using Interlux Brightside Polyurethane, which according to the Interlux website is a "Hard, high gloss one part polyurethane finish."

We bought all of the primer for both hulls, plus the bright white for the bilge, and the trim colour visible on the ramp and rudder in the background, at Silva Bay Shipyards on Gabriola. Silva Bay is where we get dear Penna the Folkboat hauled out for maintenance.

Beginning with the beam chocks. Note very stylish gloves! 

We did get a bit of paint in Nanaimo (still pretty local!) at the Harbour Chandler's -- one litre of our planned hull colour, plus an additive to make it less glossy. Linking to the Harbour Chandler website is a bit of an act of faith -- it hasn't been working for Quite Some Time, but presumably someone there will eventually stop talking about boats, notice the problem and fix it.

The very stylish gloves come from Village Foods, on Gabriola. (Bet they aren't even aware of their role in the boat-building process.)

First coat underway! Note change in colour of very stylish gloves.
They modify to match the paint being applied -- very high tech.