Painting part of a boat might be trickier than painting the whole thing. The two floats / amas were finish-painted 5+ years ago, but we updated them this year with the new chainplates, net lashing tubes and beefier deck hardware. We had one unopened quart of the previous generation Interlux off-white two part polyurethane; it needed to do the whole job… Here we are after the glossy paint:

This is applied with a smooth foam roller and tipped-off with one stroke if a brush at 45 degrees. Definitely an art, easy to screw up, and must be done with very thin paint.

Now the masking goes back on to make out the non skid areas:

Yep, the tape roll was the just-right size to make an elegant arc near the hatch. We pulled all the tape this evening and are satisfied with the results.

The floats are now done and ready to move out of the shop. We tried to mask off for the few inches of bottom paint each hull needs but their dollies are too in the way. After an hour of rolling around the floor getting pretty frustrated in the 95 degree heat I realized this job will be much easier just before launch when the boat is assembled and the floats are suspended in air. So we need to account for 24 hours of dry time in the assembly schedule. There is also deck hardware to install but that can be done while the hulls are on their trailer in July. We’ll talk about the butyl tape method later.

So tomorrow afternoon we’ll take our best shot at loading these 35′ hulls

On to this trailer:

It’s a 35′ heavy duty aluminum boat trailer, now with 4x4s lashed over the bunks to accept our floats on their trollies. We have 8′ of width on the trailer while the trollies pushed tight side by side are 7′. The trick will be lifting them 32″ in the air to clear the trailer. Between our chain-hoist from a shop roof girder, and the neighbor’s forklift hopefully this goes alright. Ought to be exciting anyway!

PS – if any readers know of a F32/32/33 looking for a very nice big aluminum trailer, send them our way. We’re borrowing a friend’s; it was outfitted new for a Corsair 37 for delivery cross country, and was never road-used after that. It should be available for sale in later September.