Passion X

Friday was a late finish as it was ideal weather for painting the epoxy primer. I still has a couple of patches to fill but rather than delay the primer I filled the patches and painted around the filled area.
I used a high volume low pressure spray to apply the Interprotect epoxy primer and this worked well until some hardened primer blocked the spray gun. My attempts to clear it were unsuccessful so I finished applying the last section of the flat bottom with a roller and by 6:15pm I had covered the hull and used up all of the eight litres of mixed paint.

Now that is just the first coat as I have three more to apply .

Inside the hull I have applied the first coat to the V beth lockers and started to paint the V berth themselves. This means hand sanding the stringers and the inside of the radius chine so I have been happy for the odd rainy day when the conditions under the hull are tolerable for sanding and for painting. Two coats of a satin finish high build epoxy primer will give a pleasant finish to the interior of the lockers and the underside or the VG berth bunks.

These shelves in the V berth lockers are so much deeper than on Passion X and the top side and underside of every shelf is getting the same two coats of epoxy treatment.

Back at Greenwich Flying squadron we had a handicap win last Wednesday. The breeze was at the top end of our No 1 light genoa range and with a crewmember holding the clew out to windward we sailed through the fleet on the first downwind leg. From there on it was concede as little ground as possible on the windward leg to Goat Island and hang on for the race back around Cockatoo and home.

The wind was definately in the sweet spot for Passion X, we had a clean bottom and applied maximum vang pressure to windward so we could drop the boom down and retain height with the tight leech. Lots of rig adjustment throught the variable wind strength kept us moving but it will take a mighty effort to match the J boats to windward. Well done to Jackpot for a fastest time.

I have been quiet with posts and with facebook because the current state of play is that the thin layer of fibreglass cladding is taking a lot longer to apply and fair than I had anticipated. Also the photos of the partially faired glass are unflattering.

As of today the whole of the hull has been machine sanded and checked for fariness with a torture board pass. There are several spots where filler will have to be applied and these are mostly where the very thin layer of tissue on top of the 265 gsm double bias either missed or overlaped. When I say very thin I mean 22 grams per square metre or less than one tenth of the base layer.

I will spend the next two days spot filling and using the torture board to check for any more imperfections before applying the first coat of white epoxy primer. The first coat will be sanded back hard to identify any high or low spots that I miss with the torture board on the raw fibreglass.

On Passion X, after turning the hull, the primer around the gunwhale had to be sanded back to get a fair finish so I am paying particular attention to sanding the fibreglass around the gunwhale so that the primer will be fair.

Inside the hull I have been making little progress because the weather has generally been fine enough for sanding but I have cut out the settee backs and starter fitting cleats to the shelves.

There is a possibility that the epoxy priming of the hull will line up with the epoxy priming of the V berth locker fronts and the settee backs. Time will tell.

On the sailing front we hung on for a win in the Summer series due to our attendance record. Now we are back to the Spring and Autumn series where we are hanging on to the lead by the slimmest of margins. Last night did not help when we were slow out of Humbug. We overtook Ausreo at Cockatoo Island and Fireball just before Goat Island. On the run back to Cockatoo we briefly caught sight of Jackpot, U topia, Joli and Meridian and for a short while the breeze carried us closer to this quartet. Unfortunately we sailed into the hole that they escaped from and were run down in turn by Fireball.
Around Cockatoo we streatched our from Fireball and Ausreo and made good progress on the tight reach to Humbug. Ausreo had a better run home than most and managed to catch up on handicap but we did take out Jackpot and Fireball to just retain our lead from Meridian who is having a real charge at the lead.