Day 127, Year 4: Suey, Suey (pronounced ‘soy’) meaning Beautiful
Date: Thursday, February 26, 2009
Weather: Sunny and Hot; 90 degrees F, 61 percent relative humidity
Location: Boat Lagoon Marina, Phuket Island
The short story is that at 2:30 pm this afternoon, after three hours of continuous painting, Windbird’s hull is Vestal White and she looks beautiful (suey in Thai).
The long story follows . . .
7:15 am-First trip to Windbird to assure ourselves that the waterline is really where we want it. We had talked about this before now, but all of a sudden we were just unsure about lowering the waterline as Oh had suggested. We definitely had too much bottom paint showing since we raised the waterline seven inches in New Zealand. When Oh watched Windbird come it to be hauled out, he had marked the waterline the way he thought it should be. The hassle if the waterline is too close to the water is that you get a yellow scum line that is hard to clean. After our trip to the boat this morning, we decided that he is right so the way he had it taped off was right.
8:15 am-Second trip to Windbird to see if the crew had arrived so we could tell them we found a paint run under one of the fittings on the hull that needed to be sanded out. As soon as we got back to the room, we got a Skype call from Alan Kanegsberg. Alan is our good friend and fellow sailor back in Concord, New Hampshire. He has been following the logs and just wanted to wish us luck on this big day.
9:30 am-Mark made trip number three without me while I stayed in the apartment cleaning stainless. Oh had arrived and Mark talked to him about the waterline, asking if there would be a white stripe above the bottom paint and then the green boot stripe. We have not had a white waterline stripe since New Zealand and Mark didn’t remember the conversation we had with Oh when he recommended putting the white stripe back. Oh recommended a one-inch white stripe right above the waterline and then a three-inch green waterline stripe. Mark then walked around the yard to check the width of other boat waterline stripes.
10:30 am-Fourth trip to Windbird to watch the preparation for painting. By the time we got there all of the taping off had been completed, the concrete under the boat had been flooded with water to get rid of the last source of dust, even more temporary plastic covering had gone up to protect the hull from anything that might fall out of the air. While testing the paint guns and hose with the air compressor, Oh decided he wanted new hose and new hose fittings, so he sent Eu to get that. Mark hung around longer that I did as I needed to get back and rinse the rust dissolving gel off some stainless, and took some last minute preparation photos. Pong was suited up and ready to paint and the tent was being closed. Mark returned to the apartment and we sat and waited with butterflies in our stomachs.
11:45 am-Mark made the fifth trip alone, got a couple of pictures through a hole in the tent, but couldn’t tell much about what was happening.
12:45 pm-Ley called to say she drove by Windbird and saw some guys sitting out front. So we made trip number six over to see what was happening. When we arrived there was a young man standing at the tent corner watching what was happening inside, but the air was thick with paint so that it looked very foggy inside. We hung around and then Luck came out to mix more paint under the temporary tarp that was hung to protect the paint from the sun. He said they were on coat number two and things were going well. Oh was spraying on the port side with Lok holding the tank.
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| 090226 Day 127 Boat Lagoon, Phuket, Thailand– Topcoat Goes On Windbird |
2:15 pm-As we arrived for our seventh visit of the day, Luck came out of the tent and said, “Three.” We assumed he meant the three coats were on. Oh was still spraying but almost done. When he emerged from the tent his curly black hair had white tips and even his eyelashes were white. We took a peak but didn’t go in yet. We ran to the store to get beer and juice, and some Snickers bars, for the crew and then we went in to see Windbird. The water was still running flooding the floor so no dust
could be kicked into the air to mar her beautiful sheen. And she does shine. The paint job looks perfect. I’m sure we’ll find little imperfections, but right now we are super happy and greatly relieved.
Oh is proud of the job and anxious to get the tent off so others can see. But first, the green shear line (top of the hull) and the green waterline must be painted. AwlGrip and Oh say that masking tape can be applied to the hull in twelve hours, so tomorrow morning the tape will go on and the green will be added. We then hope to let her sit until Monday before a heavy plastic is put on covering the hull while the cabin top is painted. Oh does the hull first so it has a longer time to cure before
going back in the water, but this requires that it be meticulously covered while other work goes on. While all of this is going on, Mark and I are working on photos and we keep cleaning and polishing stainless and searching for the nuts, bolts, and screws we need. We are finding lots of 304 stainless, but not as much 316 which is what we need. Tomorrow we will take a trip into Phuket Town to Bangkok Hardware. Ley and Neil tell us it is fantastic and maybe that hardware store will have more of
what we need. So the search continues.
