S/V Sheba Moon

The S/V Sheba Moon is a 67' Skookum that arrived on the yard several weeks ago. As she was lifted out of the water, what we thought was going to be minor bottomwok repairs quickly turned into a much larger issue.

As the sun dried the hull, a massive quantity of blisters began to emerge from underneath the bottom paint. Blisters are caused when the boat is immersed over a long period of time. At the very least, blisters are unsightly and reduce performance speed of the vessel. At their worst, blisters can seriously degrade the structural integrity of the underlying laminate.

After several meetings with the owners to discuss possible solutions to the problem, it was decided that the best solution was to blast the boat down to the barrier coat, repair the blister damage and apply a new barrier coat and bottom paint. We worked up a budget number for the complete job and commenced work. Of course, as with most bottom jobs, until you begin the work, there is no way of knowing exactly how much energy the job will take, and we've run into our first unexpected event. We had planned on blasting with walnut shells (which are less obtrusive than sand) and believed the blasting process would take no more than a day and a half to complete.

You can see at left where the layers of bottom paint come of, but it is much harder to remove the primer layer. Very quickly, we had to abandon the idea of using walnut shells on the entire boat and switch to sand in order to get the job done.

The other main factor that must be considered when blasting is the weather. No matter how many precautions are taken to keep the work areas clean, there will invariably be clean up costs involved once the process is over.

If the wind is too strong, or it is a rainy day, blasting is very ill-advised. Blast particles can travel onto other boats nearby, and if the paint residue becomes wet, it is next to impossible to remove without repainting the vessel. For that reason, all vessels are checked after blasting.

So, between the wind, the rain, and the change of tactics, in two weeks we have had three good days to blast the bttom of this boat. Hopefully we will finish today and we will be ablt to see just how many blisters we are dealing with.

Check back often to monitor the progress of this project.