This can't be good for me!What you don't see in this picture is the probably lethal amount of bottom paint dust that the mask didn't prevent me from inhaling. Sanding the bottom of a racing sailboat is much more than cosmetic...it's an art form. If you want your boat to gain that crucial tenth of a knot advantage in a close race, you have to basically burnish the hard, copper-based anti-fouling paint on the hull to a mirror sheen.
I'm not that obsessive about it (yet), but I did make sure I put a nice finish on the wetted surface. When I invariably do poorly in races this season, at least I won't be able to blame the condition of the hull on it!
We'll finally be launching the boat later this week, and when the water warms up a bit and the weather gets nice and hot, I'll be welcoming a bunch of you nutty bloggers to sail with us.
To keep tabs on how the sailboat racing goes this season, please check out my sailing blog, "Team Full Tilt".
2 comments:
My father-in-law was a car body man and he could actually differentiate tastes in paint. On the other hand, he also smoked while working with gasoline and other combustibles. Oh, and he didn't wear no f-ing mask either! Good luck on your boat - must be nice.
Thanks! Yeah, at least the mask stopped SOME of the stuff! Check out my sailing blog (linked at the bottom of the article and in my Other Blogs section) for better pictures and accounts of our racing and cruising.
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