Almost Done

Chris here... Well, we finished the compound, polish and wax of Pelican today. We're absolutely floored with the results. We've gone from a boat with seaweed growing around the waterline, soot on the aft end from the generator and discoloration all the way around to a bright, shiny hull that shows the reflection of everything around it. For those of you that care, we used Presta Gelcoat Compound, Presta Ultra Cutting Creme and Colinite Fleet Wax (paste) plus a number of supporting supplies. Feel free to e-mail us for more information, but I can say there is definitely a difference in spending some extra money on the products. It took us two days to compound, one day to polish and half a day to do the wax. Each day was about 10 hours long and the first three included holding the buffer/polisher (about 10lbs) above our heads while it spun at 2000+ RPM. When I say "We", I mostly mean Kristen though. Actually, I don't think I touched the buffer, but I'll stick with the "We". I did put the tape around the boat, and today I did all of the wax removal (not as easy as it sounds), so I did contribute somewhat! OK.. when I say "I", I really mean Kristen. Oh whatever. We are sooooooooooo happy to have it done! I had tried to convince Kristen before we started that we should hire someone to do the work. We could have had it done for free. I was concerned about how much work it would be and tried to tell her that she may end up hurting herself with so much hull to polish. But then she reminded me of how the quality of the work we do is always so much better than when we hire someone so I gave in. It wasn't worth continuing to argue, and I can't argue that the results are amazing.

Tomorrow we have a bunch of miscellaneous projects - install the new vented loop, reinstall the rub rail bronze strips, pressure test the cooling system and a few other odds and ends. Then we're done with this maintenance session! We're hoping to launch on Wednesday and then head to Beaufort on Friday. We need to run the prop for a while to make sure it doesn't fall off (since we took care of the re-install ourselves) and then we'll be ready to head north. I've been working on pictures going all the way back to the beginning of May. There will probably be over 100! Look for them soon.