Another coat

The coachroof looks really good this morning -- not tipping was definitely the way to go. I've got just less than 2 weeks before they put me in the water, so I need to get the deck finished as quickly as possible. However, you can still see shadows coming through the finish, so she needs another coat. She'll actually get several more coats when I start applying the non-skid, but I'm temped to roll another one this morning before the weather turns sour. That would mean that the edges, where I won't be applying any non-skid, will be essentially done. The only problem is that it will add another day to the schedule.

There's a window of a couple days where you can apply another coat without sanding, so I'd prefer to get it on now and build up the finish. I had to sand a good portion of the first coat off to remove the brush strokes, especially on the curves, so it really only has a single coat right now. I also want to get the cockpit primed before it rains, so I need to make a decision soon and get busy.

If I do roll another coat, I'll have to do some prep work first, like knocking off any bumps or garbage that got into the finish, but I don't think there's that much. I might even be able to get a second coat on the starboard side deck without any sanding. It's been about 3 days, and at these cool temperatures, that's the maximum re-coat time (I'm sure they fudged it a little too, so I should be well within the limits). I just need to do a better job of keeping the roller clean and changing it more often to obviate a lot of sanding and polishing later on.

Zoe watch:

It got pretty cold last night, into the high 40's again, but she didn't seem to mind it. I closed off the forecastle to reduce the amount of space I needed to keep warm and used both the little electric heater and my anchor lamp to warm up the boat before we went to bed. It was nice and toasty in the cabin when I turned them off. I'm really happy with the anchor lamp. It burns kerosene and really puts out a lot of heat. It probably provides almost as much heat as the electric heater. I'm even thinking of getting a few more "yacht" lamps to help minimize power consumption.

Anyway, Zoe stayed warm and didn't need to get into my bag. She's sunning herself out in front of the boat right now.

Update:

It looks like the coat I rolled yesterday is still too soft to sand. I was trying to lightly sand it and noticed I was leaving footprints in the port side deck, so I can't even walk over it right now to sand or paint. I guess it'll have to wait until at least tomorrow. That also means that, due to the weather, I'll need to wait at least 3-4 days after that to start remounting hardware. I don't think that'll be a problem, but I need to get the cockpit caught up right away if I want to get her dry before it's time to splash.

However, the weather is already starting to deteriorate, so I'm not sure I'll even have time to roll another coat of primer on the cockpit -- about half of which hasn't even been primed at all. Even if I do, I won't be able to take off the hatches and paint around them since it'll most certainly start raining before they cure enough to bring them back on board. I'll just mix up a small amount and concentrate on the areas where hardware needs to be re-mounted.