BCC Elizabeth

Watertight Decks
I bedded down the forward dorade receptacle and the mast partner thinghy. I’m using Life Caulk for these jobs. I bed it down and tighten the screws a bit, then leave it about 24hrs. The next day I tighten it down proper. I leave the splooged out caulk another day to fully cure then trim it off with a razor blade. In other words, I just follow the manufacturers directions! It comes out pretty clean and just needs a little extra clean up in a few spots. So far that has worked pretty well for me. This allowed me to remove the wretched blue tarp and I can now wash down the decks, and topsides in preparation for some compound and wax.

Fresh Cotton
While the bowsprit is off the boat I thought it would be a good idea to re-caulk the forward bitts. Both of them seemed to be a little loose and the caulking looked shot. On the port bitt, I removed all the cotton caulking; on the starboard bitt i just removed the old polysulfide and added a single layer of cotton (mainly because I ran out of cotton). I had grabbed some cotton from Myles on The Vineyard and bought a caulking iron from Jamestown Distributors. I had done some caulking on some of the wooden schooners I worked on, so I had a bit of a clue about what I was doing, but it always seems weird to me to be trying to make a watertight seal with a water absorbing substance such as cotton. I came to the conclusion that the cotton just holds the bitts in the right place and keeps them from moving around and the Life Caulk I put on top really does the water-sealing. Perhaps. I love projects that make me feel like I’m working on a wooden boat. I coated the bitts with CPES and plan to fill the checks with G-Flex Epoxy.

Sweet Bottom
Sometimes I just need to do a project that makes me feel like I’m getting close to launching… painting the bottom is one of those projects. Really makes me feel like I’m making progress and it looks kinda sexxy to see her lines. I’m planning to do a blue underlayer followed by a black top layer. But I’m undecided right now if I should do a second coat of blue… for a total of 3 coats of bottom paint. It took me less then a gallon to paint the bottom. I assume when I move the jackstands, I’ll use the full gallon. I’m surprised, I thought I’d need more then a gallon to do this bottom. My Nor’sea 27 used a gallon and certainly the BCC has more underbody surface area… hmm…