Painting under pads and keel blocks

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by fstbttms

Umm... not so much.

As a hull cleaner, I see this all the time. Pad spots get painted while the boat is in the slings just before splashing. What the yard either doesn't know (or want you to know) is that anti fouling paint "cures" when the solvents in the liquid flash off, leaving the paint a solid coating. This process requires exposure to air, which does not happen when the boat is in the water. The result is the paint in these areas never cures and remains unstable, soft and short-lived. It's a poor practice.

Tell us more. Do you have many customers that move the pads? Any that move the keel blocks?

[Orion Jim]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

If you organize to have your boat be the first launched in the morning some yards may agree to lift the boat last thing the day before, giving you the opportunity to do a decent prep and antifoul on the patches.

We did this last time we slipped the boat.

That's what I do. It's one of the considerations afforded to respectful long term customers who pay their yard bills promptly

[wrwakefield]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

If you organize to have your boat be the first launched in the morning some yards may agree to lift the boat last thing the day before, giving you the opportunity to do a decent prep and antifoul on the patches.

We did this last time we slipped the boat.

This is precisely how our yard handled our paint the keel bottom request.

They lifted the boat as their last travelift task of the day, and left the boat in the slings overnight. After we applied two coats of paint on the keel bottom, we slid the blocks back into position as a safety.

I would never attempt moving the blocks [or stands] myself on our 22+ ton monohull. [And agree not to in the haulout contract. They happily move the stands as requested...]

Below is a photo of the boat hanging above the blocks after we finished the 2nd coat on the keel bottom. [Not too exciting- unless you are sleeping in the boat...]

Cheers! Bill

[Dooglas]

Maybe because the yards in my area are small and don't handle many boats - it is typical that there is some delay between launches anyway. Usually possible to coordinate your launch so that your boat spends an hour in the slings allowing hand touch up and reasonable drying time. As others mentioned, sometimes it is possible to arrange for overnight, over lunch, or whatever to facilitate drying. The Travel Lift has to be somewhere overnight. :-)

[steve77]

We met a sailor who told us of his haulout and bottom paint job in Egypt. After the boat was painted, the yard launched the boat without painting the areas where the boat was blocked or resting on pads. When our friend argued, they sent a diver into the water with a roller loaded with bottom paint.

He said there was an immediate red fog in the water from the diver trying to roll the paint on underwater, but of course it did no good. It was funny when told over a beer, but I would have been furious.

Steve

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by Don C L

Never get to move keel blocks, I need to dive down and knock off sometimes. .

Us too, we just dry out somewhere and let the mud, pebbles and freshwater do the work. Can't all boats stand up when dried out?

Pete

[jmh2002]

Whilst it is not the most economical approach in the first instance (unless the yard is very accommodating), and it also isn't helpful for a quick haul and splash, we always just got the yard to move everything (pads and keel blocks) in order to do a thorough job.

This method, along with extra coats on the waterline, leading edges, and any other high wear spots (boat dependant) normally resulted in the antifoul lasting much longer, so in the end it tended to be cost effective.

And, we also made sure to antifoul very carefully all of the other underwater items too, prop, shaft, speed log, up inside the through hulls fittings, etc, despite the yards always frowning on this (often I just did these extra items myself, with time and patience). Again, it made a big difference to longevity.

I'm sure most people, upon hauling, see that 75% of the antifoul is ok, but not the waterline, not the rudder, not the leading edge of the keel, etc, etc, and not the damn jack stand pad locations...

[guyrj33]

Originally Posted by David M

Never ever do this. This is in the agreement that you signed. Boatyards specifically prohibit this and many will kick you out if they catch you. This is for your safety, others safety and for the safety of the boatyards employees.

Wait until your boat is on the Travelift right before launch to paint the spots you missed, if you insist on going cheap on this. Otherwise, do the right thing and pay the yard to move the supports.

Never do this? That's a pretty severe position.
I've moved the stands to paint under the pads almost every year I've owned our 33' sailboat. I've owned the boat since 1986!
I've never moved the keel blocks, I don't have a strong enough jack.

[John_Trusty]

The joys of fresh water and Pettit VC17 - 5 minute cure time (on a cold day). The yard slings it near the water. The owner walks around with a roller and a little leftover paint. By the time you're finished with the far side, the first side is all dry. Getting under the keel when she's on the slings is a bit nerve-racking, but you're only under for thirty seconds, max. We're at the mouth of a river, and in silty water, the slime and mussels do not really grow well under a meter below water.

[atmartin]

If it's just a regular bottom job, I don't worry about getting better than a half-hearted couple coats the morning of launch. I'm not a bottom paint expert; however, I've cleaned a lot of bottoms (in the water) and there might be something to the previous comment about pad areas not curing correctly. There's often more growth in the pad areas, but I chalked it up to yard guys scraping the bottom of the can, thinning or just being lazy about the last minute coats. Food for thought.

Having done a few race bottoms and fairing jobs: it's a process. On a larger boat, I'll loosen one pad at a time for stripping. When we're fairing/barrier coating, I just have the yard guys re-block everything, pads and keel blocks, at least once. It's still a pain and if you want the bottom of the keel perfectly fair, it's easier to work in the slings, but as an owner I doubt the yard will give you that kind of time unless business is really slow.

I have, on smaller boats (<4 tons), used bottle jacks to move the keel blocks around. To some, I'm sure that sounds super sketchy, but professionals do it all the time. When I work as a customer/owner, I do my best to respect the yard rules and definitely don't screw around with blocking. They often don't charge to just move the stands and I've never been charged more than an hour's labor to re-block the keel too.

Also, if we're just talking paint on a cruiser, some yards will loosen the stands (one at a time) and paint under the pad, then tighten them back up with newspaper between the stand and hull. In my experience, that paper doesn't dissolve as readily as you'd think, so I'm not a big fan of that.

[toddster8]

I had to do a pretty extensive blister repair and barrier coat job and repair some old grounding damage in the (fiberglass encapsulated) keel of my 10,000 lb 30-footer. No yard was involved, except my own. Basically I used eleven jack stands (including the cradle) to distribute the load and carefully lifted the boat off the keel blocks. Additional shoring was added fore and aft during those days that I needed to work on the entire bottom of the keel. There was no drama. Lowering one or two jacks at a time to paint under the pads was tedious- several days for multiple coats each time- but no problem.

A boat this size is not a very unusual load, and much better ballasted, compared to some of the other things we handle on the farm.

[Sailorman Ed]

Thinwater, on my current and previous cat, I just unscrew the jackstands and move them - one at a time, as the they are just to balance out the boat while on the keels. For the keels, they are usually on several blocks anyway, just put a bottle jack under with a thinner block of wood to spread out the load, jack up just enough to move the block to paint under it. I usually do this after hours just to avoid any issues. The boat isn't going anywhere and certainly less risk to me than jacking up a dumptruck to change a tire.


Steve 77, a number of years ago, I watched a guy paint one side of his hull with latex paint, he said he wanted to try it out.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by Pete7

Us too, we just dry out somewhere and let the mud, pebbles and freshwater do the work. Can't all boats stand up when dried out?

Pete

Many (most) sailing areas farther south have only a few feet of tide. No, it is not generally possible. Large tidal ranges tides are a northern latitude thing.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by Sailorman Ed

Thinwater, on my current and previous cat, I just unscrew the jackstands and move them - one at a time, as the they are just to balance out the boat while on the keels. For the keels, they are usually on several blocks anyway, just put a bottle jack under with a thinner block of wood to spread out the load, jack up just enough to move the block to paint under it. I usually do this after hours just to avoid any issues. The boat isn't going anywhere and certainly less risk to me than jacking up a dumptruck to change a tire.

This is generally true for multihulls, if only a modicum of good sense is used. They don't tip and many redundant support point are simple to arrange. Heck, they sit on the beach. But I'm not sure I'm ready to discuss what "good sense" is. Not everyone should change the tire on a dump truck.

[thinwater]

Painting in the slings and then expecting drying time is all well and good. I'm sure it works in some marinas. But the yard I use stores about 1100 boats on the hard, and when they are busy, forget it. You can imagine that spring and fall they are moving dozens of boats everyday, remembering that they don't haul every day or in severe weather.