The Sailing Vessel Apropos

2007 Haulout

Hauled Apropos out of the water at Canal Boatyard near Ballard in July 2007. They pressure wash the area below the waterline to remove the fresh-water algae growth.

Here is the boat after the algae was removed. The bottom paint actually looked pretty good.

I marked the hull when it was in the water so I could move the anti-fouling bottom paint up a few inches since the previous line was too low. I wanted to keep a few inches of bottom paint above the waterline. The blue tape shows where the new line will be.

View from the stern showing the blue tape for raising the bottom paint line. There are no pictures but the next 2 days of work was hell! First I removed all the zincs, then I rented an orbital power sander hooked up to a shop vac and roughed up the bottom paint. This is a messy, tiring job working mostly overhead. The sander seemed to get heavier by the hour. Next I cleaned the surface with rags and mineral spirits. I spent a few hours getting a good curve on the new paint line and making the tape even on both sides (not that you would ever see both sides at the same time).

The easiest part of any paint job is the actual painting. I used a roller to apply the bottom paint. The first coat was done in grey so I could easily see the second coat going on. Anti-fouling paint is about $240/gallon, so I tried not spilling any. When rolling paint overhead, it splatters so I wore goggles which made me like a racoon when I took the goggles off.

Finished with two coat of anti-fouling bottom paint with the raised water-line. I also replaced the zinc anodes on the prop shaft, rudder hinge, bow thruster, and thru hulls. These protect the metal from corrosion (the zincs will corrode first) in the event of stray electrical currents that could be present in the water.

After owning the boat for over 2 years, I finally got around to putting her name on the stern. I worked with a guy at Prism Graphics to come up with the font and customized it with the curvy underline extending from the letter A. I installed the graphics using soapy water and a plastic tool used to work out all the air bubbles. I won't mention what happened when I pulled away from the boatyard dock, but it's fixed now!