The big scary! A bottom job on a large boat, the stuff of nightmares, especially if you are trying to do it yourself. I had helped with a bottom job on the Pearson-26OD, which was a bigger job than we had intended. We were a bit overzealous with the drill at the start and ended up drilling out over 1000 spots (none of which were very deep) on the bottom of the boat. We used MarineTex as the filler for the blisters. That was our first mistake. The second mistake was doing the bottom job in August in Texas. Needless to say we learned alot. My next attempt at a bottom job was putting 4 coats of Interlux 2000 and 2 coats of VC Underwater on the bottom of my Catalina 22, the boat had been dry sailed before that and the prep work was limited to fairing the keel and roughing up the gel coat to accept the paint. That went well, so armed with my experience, and help from Vic Manning of the Sail Connection here in Austin, we dove headlong into the job. (Vic and his family are also partners in the boat)
The first problem we encountered was the lack of a trailer. There just wasn't a trailer big enough at the club to handle a 31 foot, 10,000 boat. So, we contracted with a professional boat mover to haul the boat out and to rent us his trailer for the duration of the bottom job. Since he had several trailers and would be gone for a couple of weeks on a delivery, we were able to work out a deal.
It took 30-45 minutes to get the boat and the bunks positioned properly. Also, as you will see, the trailer was probably a bit too small.
Yes, the trailer was a bit small, the center bunks don't reach up to the bottom of the boat. We also blew a tire on the trailer at this point!
This is what a rudder looks like after being left in Lake Travis for 11 years. About six years ago I wiped the bottom off for the original owners, I had just gotten my SCUBA gear and was feeling generous.
This shows the calcium buildup around the waterline. Lake Travis has a limestone bed and the calcium levels in the lake are extremely high. In places the buildup was between 1/4 and 1/2 inch
Another shot of the buildup.
