Green legs and ham

The part of the hull below the waterline of Erewhon was scungy last year and obviously a little worse this year as you can see from our first post of the year. We decided to bite the bullet and give it a good sand and the recommended paint job. We rolled up to the office on a Sunday morning and asked to use the pneumatic sander. David Blanquart responded to this request by saying that Sunday is for God, we should go for a walk in the forest as the temperature later in the day would be well into the thirties. Anyway, he said, it is against the law to make a noise on a Sunday, and this is so. Sundays are blissfully quiet and peaceful in this part of France and we weren‘t going to be the ones to disturb the peace so we engaged in the quiet activity of sanding (by hand) and painting in the main cabin of the boat instead.

The following day we were handed the pneumatic palm sander and given instructions on how to use it with the rider that we should take it in turns and do no more than 15 minutes each. Well, this ‘palm’ sander has two switches that must be engaged before it kicks into action. It might fit comfortably into the palm of a bloke but for us it was a two-handed operation. The sander is quite heavy, not too difficult to use in a standing position but altogether a different prospect when under the boat. In a kneeling or prone position (on your back) it was necessary to take a big breath, raise the sander above your head onto the hull, do as much sanding as you could while your breath lasted then lower the sander to start breathing again. One learnt quite quickly to make sure the head of the sander wasn’t still revolving when you lowered it onto your leg and to keep your eyes only just open when sanding above your head. We had ear muffs and masks but because a lot of the paint we were removing was green, we were rapidly covered from top to toe in green dust, hence the ‘green legs’ in the title. We had ham in one form or another for lunch on each of the two days it took to complete the job. (Catherine did say, that out of respect to Dr Seuss, I should be writing this in rhyming couplets but I decided that was far too hard!)

In our ignorance we had thought that we could sand the boat down in one morning and put the first coat on in the afternoon. Nevertheless we did a good job and the finish we achieved was admired by those whose opinions we respect. Guy did the repairs that needed to be done to the fibre glass surface and we then gave the hull three and a bit coats of the recommended antifouling paint. Jeanette has declared that if the hull is ever in that state again someone will be paid to do the sanding! We would have liked the antifouling to be green to fit in with our exterior colour scheme but had only had a choice of red, blue or black. We opted for black and as it happens it does look very smart.

The French pronounce - and some have been known to spell - antifouling as “antifooling“. We are rather tickled with the idea that a boat could be antifooled. Now wouldn’t that be a popular product!

Applying the "antifooling" paint

There were times when the boat seemd to go on forever!