I'll start with the latter. In early June when I was working on the wood with Dad it was dawning on me how much money all of these fixes were going to cost. I spent some time on line searching for discount parts and pieces but even the most complex combination of eBay, Amazon, local stores, and fly-by-night cheapos still cost over $1k for everything. While Rachele and I have both sorted out full time work and are doing better, we're not doing that well. So I decided to reach out to the family for help. Mike purchased the wood, Dad offered the cover, and most importantly my awesomely amazing sister Kelly and her husband David picked up the big pieces. It's safe to say that without them this project would be dead in the water (pun only kind of intended). I went online to West Marine's site, I picked them because they have local stores (which would prove to be a prophetic decision), and built a cart of dream purchases. This included paint, fuel tanks and lines, gauges, trailer hardware, and new bow railings. To my utter disbelief they picked it all up! I may need to rename the boat The Blacker.
Once all the pieces were in I began with the trailer. I stripped the hardware, sanded, then painted it. Once it was painted I put a new tongue jack on. From there I went to install the new keel rollers. This is where I found the first of my mistakes with the order. I ordered 8" rollers which were not right, the old ones were 12" so they needed to be exchanged. I also realized that the gallon of anti-fouling paint we got for the bottom was entirely too much, we only needed a quart. Thankfully West Marine has a pretty liberal return policy so I was able to make an exchange. Yesterday I got new rollers, paint, and with the dramatic difference in the price of a quart several other pieces I needed, mostly electrical.
After the trailer was ready I spent a couple hours under the boat sanding, and sanding, and sanding the underside. Once the sanding was complete I whipped the whole thing down with acetone and prepped some gel coat. There were many, many scratched and chips in the old coating so it took me quite a while to slather all the areas with new coatings. Between coatings I also sprayed the old striping and logo with a citrus remover Rachele got from Home Depot. This stuff is amazing, it rapidly gooyfied the old vinyl and glue. For the first time in at least 32 years, maybe ever, the hull does not say "Phantom" it's kind of sad. But worry not faithful reader, Rachele has a plan to paint on the name in glorious new high gloss letters.
As of writing, the last coat of gel coat is setting. Once that is complete I will sand it smooth and begin the painting process. We plan on three coats of bottom paint. From there we can get the boat back on the trailer and finish the side and top paint.
It's getting close!
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