This boat hull was built 15 years ago. The deck and topsides got a primer coat 5 years back, but some of you will recall the bottom wasn’t faired until just a few months ago. But tonight, a decade and a half late, the raw underwater skin was painted with the first of five coats using Interlux interprotect 2000. This will create an epoxy barrier coat over the epoxy-skinned hull, so blistering or other water intrusion should not be a future worry.

One more bow shot here to remind us where the Kevlar protective strip sits across the front. (You can see it as a vertical yellow shadow under the white fairing skim)

No boat should take this long to build, but what a great step tonight. You could feel the good vibe in the room – seems like the boat knows we’re sealing things up and sprinting towards the water. Anticipation grows…