Bottom paint
I try to keep the boat’s bottom covered as long as possible, to protect it from abrupt moisture changes. Launching day is on coming Friday so I had to remove Meritaten’s “winter dress”.
The main task for tonight was bottom painting. I used the same paint as last season - it prove to be efficient in keeping marine growth at bay, even when painting with strongly diluted paint.
Gas mask is a must when working with these paints - they smell ugly when wet and certainly can cause a headache due to toxic fumes.
I checked that there are no new opened seams, that’s good. Tomorrow is the last day before launching so I will go around the hull to see if any new openings emerge.
I checked with Anders if he can supply me with mahogany lists, in case I decide to re-glue the hull after this season. He can. I will decide if I want to do it on Friday - depending on how the launch will go. So far I had no problems with too much water ingress during the “dope” - nothing which could not be handled by my bilge pump - but re-gluing the hull will add tremendous strength to the boat and that is tempting. It’s never too much!
Second point on agenda for tonight was to check the batteries. Both seems to be fully charged - I loaded them before the winter - but just in case I top them up anyway. Will be useful for bilge pump to have enough of “juice” for a few hours after launching, before the hull swells and becomes tight.
Before leaving I started sorting out installation of POD (GeHå) heating system. The second convector has arrived recently from Toplicht - men, how nice it is, with its copper mesh!
Tomorrow I will connect all components and hopefully fill the system with glycol, to be ready for action. It is still chilly at nights - with temperatures just below zero - so having heat system operational is a plus.
POD system is no longer produced and it is getting hard to find used ones. Back in the days I bought a supply of spare parts to my system so I can keep it alive for many decades.
Installation instructions are still available on forums but Internet is volatile. Below are the scans from instructions I gathered while searching for data.