Tom Döhler
Hmmm … so I just realised we might have made a massive mistake. Today was the day we wanted to get the boat moved so we could paint the five patches that were underneath the supports that Bon Bini sits in. I went to the boat yard super early and secured us a spot in the waiting line for the crane. Most of the morning and afternoon I spent figuring out how to install the water maker in the tiny space beneath the sink. Wrestling it into that tiny space, hanging upside down in the locker and using every limb to either hold myself or the heavy water maker was extremely difficult. Anyway, after a long time of pulling, pushing, prodding and wiggling I managed to get the thing mounted. Yay!
The crane came around 16:00 to lift Bini just enough to allow us to shift the supports. Once that was done and the boat was sitting in her cradle again, I started mixing the last bit of primer. I was so happy, it felt good to be on the final stretch! But, as I was mixing it I realised that we’d made a huge mistake.
The primer comes in two separate parts, a base and a hardener. The base is like classic paint and needs a good mix before you start working with it. The hardener looks like honey and gets poured into the base paint. As I was mixing in the last bit of hardener I realised there was a load of sediment at the bottom of the can. I mixed it in the whole hardener became a much darker and more like a solid paste. That means that over the course of the whole week, we’ve been putting layers of primer on which hasn’t been properly mixed. This in turn means we might have to do the whooooole thing again, which means sanding off the antifouling, stripping the primer back down to the gelcoat, and spending another fortune on primer and paint. The last painful two weeks of work has all been in vein, I’m not sure if I can face it to be honest.
Cycling back to the hotel I wasn’t sure how to break the news to Camilla, or if I even should. Deciding to man up I walked in, gave her a kiss hello, and said we’d made a massive f*cking mistake. Looking horrified she asked what sort of mistake and I explained as her face went whiter by the second. We went through all the emotions: despair, remorse, hope, panic, hysterical laughter, then all the way back around. The good thing is that it’s not irreversible. The bad thing is that’s it’s going to cost us a fortune in time, money, pride and it means staying in rented rooms for another few weeks.
We had dinner and tried to sleep, but all we could think about was freakin paint. I’ll see if I can get in touch with the paint manufacturer tomorrow morning to see how bad it is and what options we have. I can’t quite believe this is happening.
