Ok, admittedly that probably doesn't sounds like the healthiest title for a blog post. But I have always loved the smell of fresh paint. However, this particular paint has a stranger and strong odor from what I was used to. It contains a very high copper content and is meant to wear off (which I find odd considering it costs about 10 times more than regular paint) and has to be reapplied essentially once a year. Yes, this boat is turning out to cost a bit more than I had planned. Admittedly however, I did not NEED to use khaya mahogany for the rails or African Lacewood for the deck. But they are damn pretty.
So as you saw in the previous post, the boat was rolled over and I subsequently fiberglassed, epoxied, and saned the entire hull. This took the majority of the last month (especially the sanding) but I am happy to say my hands and blood vessels have become quite accustomed to the sander's vibrations. That carpal tunnel syndrome will feel great in a few years. Awesome. So, here she is being jacked up with my car jack so the keel is perfectly level. This was a necessity to strike the waterline...
I found this amusing, I didn't have enough scrap wood laying around to support the boat once it was level, so I improvised. This is out-of-code beer that I had laying around my house which supported the 800 pound boat and myself on top of it quite easily. Each side has about 3 cases of beer holding it up. Now, I'm sure many of my readers will consider this a horrific abuse of money and/or beer. Normally I would agree. However, I have the wonderful fortune of having more beer around my house that you could possibly fucking imagine. And no, I don't pay for it. (Although, I think I will have to scrounge up some cash for that liver transplant in a few years)Fuck me.
As I mentioned earlier, here is the waterline after it was striked using a laser level. The laser level was a very cool tool. No matter what position I set it down, I could adjust a few settings and perfectly match the previously ascribed line. Then I masked it off with some tape... washed her down with some very foul smelling chemicals that literally dissolved the latex gloves I was wearing right off my hands and....
Started painting!
Here she is after the 3rd coat was applied, and the dried. I pulled off the masking tape and much to my delight a perfect waterline! (I thought for sure some tiny bit of paint would have soaked through or underneath some tape that wasn't applied just right. 
From another angle.
But instead of just working on the boat for Memorial Day weekend I did a little backpacking with friends. Here we are in Vermont, with my ex-Marine buddy Paul and his puppy Chief. Chief is doing a great job of balancing on the logs that I fell onto in the middle of the night subsequently cracking a rib... Yes, I suck. But I toughed it out with my pack and came home to work on the boat. Coming up next: Dark blue topsides, close-ups of the mahogany rails, and hopefully a fully sanded and painted cabin interior!
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