Jeff is looking spiffier . . .

. . . but boy have we got a ways to go.  My goal is the end of August, but I just don’t know if I can get the deck all caulked and painted by then.  Although I am about ½ way done.

Paul put the cotton in the stem last week, and I did my now-favorite trowel cement trick, and a coat of epoxy (the yellow stuff, also called fairing compound I guess). 

You can hardly tell the bow was hacked to pieces.

Well, from 10 feet, anyway.

Painting the bottom took most of the day--and I've done it before so I am no stranger to this boat's bottom.  Still, what a $#@! pain.  But thanks to "Frog Tape" and a really well-scribed waterline, I think it came out okay.

Paul says next year they will re-install the worm strip below the keel; it's mostly gone now.  Geez, I hope the worms stay away!

I’ve started applying, or finishing, the trowel cement with the plastic yellow blade I was using for the fairing compound, with great results—it’s a lot smoother and uses much less goo.  Paul apparently has an endless supply of trowel cement in his magic basement, which is good since I’ve already gone through a can of it and as I mentioned, Interlux doesn’t make it anymore.

Here are the tricks of the caulking trade—three little irons, which Paul showed me how to use and which I’m using on the deck, where mistakes don’t exact such a high price, like sinking.  But fortunately on the deck there aren’t that many gaping holes all the way down.

After the trowel cement is done on the deck I think I will paint all the white, and then possibly sand and paint the cockpit (yawn-inducing gray). Then on to the deck (light tan) while Paul wrestles with the (ulp) keel under the cockpit, which he says has gotten a little “mushy.”  Will this poor boat’s trials and indignities know no end?  And for this we have to drill out holes and put brass pins in there along with epoxy, which apparently will do the trick until such time as Jeff gets a complete keel transplant.  Or sinks.  Or both.

The boat-letterer, who does it every year, just told me she won’t be able to do it this year, so I’m going to see if a $15 gold boat stencil will do the trick.  I can do it but it’d cost me my sanity, I think, and several hours.  This is the best one I could find. I wanted gold but all this company had was dark yellow.  Other companies had the gold but the letter choices sucked, and the one in England was going to charge over $50 so forget that.

The yellow will be just about fine, I think.  Unless it should be white.  I dunno.

Here's the transom:

And here's the letters (42' wide, 4' high:

When it goes into the water, I have about 2 weeks to sand and varnish the spars. Ad then of course we’re into September.

It’s funny; I now know just about every plank and nail and peculiarity of this boat, but I cannot picture myself on it under sail.  I stand on the deck and look down toward the bow, trying to gauge whether this is a small boat or an incredibly huge one, sailing-wise.  I have no idea.  I keep getting the feeling of this immense power, and all that old wood, everything straining in the wind, and the big keel and all those rocks in Fishers Island Sound just waiting to get a crack at it . . . I want Jeff to get in the water but I fear the next step.

Especially if I’m involved in it.